6 Form 10-300 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR (July 1969) NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Mississippi COUNTY: NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES Hinds INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM FOR NPS USE ONLY
ENTRY NUMBER (Type all entries — complete applicable sections) WA/-. 23-cry
COMMON: Capitol AND/OR HISTORIC:
STREET AND NUMBER: Fronting Mississippi Street, between North President and North West CITY OR TOWN: Jackson COUNTY: 23 Hinds 049
CATEGORY ACCESSIBLE OWNERSHIP STATUS (Check One) TO THE PUBLIC
District |X] Building Public Acquisition: Q3 Occupied Yes: Q Restricted Site Q Structure Private || In Process I| Unoccupied X] Unrestricted D Object f Both | | Being Considered I I Preservation work in progress n NO
U PRESENT USE (Check One or More as Appropriate)
I | Agricultural (Xl Government D Park I I Trqrtjspo'rratiprr /t~~l Comments | | Commercial | | Industrial I I Private Residence (Speci.) | | Educational | | Military | | Religious
I | Entertainment || Museum | | Scientific
•:•:•:•: :•:•:-:•:;(•:•: &;iiis OWNER'S NAME: Public ownership
LLJ STREET AND NUMBER: UJ State of Mississippi Cl TY OR TOWN: STATE: ^--^ Mississippi 23
COURTHOUSE, REGISTRY OF DEEDS, ETC: Hinds County Chancery Court Building STREET AND NUMBER: 316 South President Street Cl TY OR TOWN: STATE Jackson Mississippi 23
TITLE OF SURVEY: - HindsT, . j County"_ ,, WPA Historical Research Project, "Source Material for Mississippi DATE OF SURVEY: Ca< 1938 Fede State | | County Local DEPOSITORY FOR SURVEY RECORDS: Mississippi Department of Archives and History STREET AND NUMBER: 120 North State Street CITY OR TOWN: STATE: Jackson Mississippi (Check One) Excellent S Good [~1 Fair | | Deteriorated [~] Ruins | | Unexposed CONDITION (Check One; One.) Altered d] Unaltered Original Site
DESCRIBE THE PRESENT AND ORIGINAL (if fcnown,) PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
The main facade of the New Capitol faces the south, with the south portico centering/with Congress Street. The style of the building is that of Beaux Arts Classicism and is designed on the order of pavilions connected by wings. The pavilions are provided with porticos and arcades. The exterior walls of the building are of Bedford limestone, and the base course is of Georgia granite.
The New Capitol's main vestibule is constructed entirely of Blue Vermont marble oil h base of Black Belgian marble. The central rotunda is of Italian marble with trimmings of black marble. Friezes and columns of scagliola lead to an elaborately decorated dome, supported at four points with marble niches designed as receptacles for statuary, developing into massive free columns in the second story to the frieze line of the dome. The legislative halls, located in c/» the two extreme points of the third story are built upon marble and rn scagliola, both with dome-shaped ceilings of oxidized copper, stucco _ and stained glass. The central dome is surmounted by a 15* x 8' copper eagle, coated with gold leaf.
The only repairs of any consequence on the New Capitol since its erection were accomplished in 1934-/35, when the interior was generally repaired and redecorated. f 70
n PERIOD (Check One or More as Appropriate) [ | Pre-Columbian ] [ I 16th Century 20th Century
Q 15th Century D 17th Century 1903- AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE (Check One or More as Appropriate) Aboriginal [~1 Education gv] Political I| Urban Planning n Prehistoric n Engineering Q Religion/Phi- n Other (Specify) Q Historic Q Industry losophy
[ | Agriculture Q Invention Q Science
(X] Architecture (Kl Landscape | | Sculpture D Art Architecture Q Social/Human- | | Commerce D Literature itarian
| | Communications [3 Military Q Theater
| | Conservation | | Music | | Transportation
TATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE, : ; ! < i
' ' '1 ! ' - i ; ' '- " Work on the New Capitol began in 19JX1, and the building to was completed in 1903. Since that time, it Has been the seat of the Mississippi State Government. Many of Mississippi's 20th Z century Congressmen and prominent state political officials have o served in the New Capitol in one of the three branches of state government. « U The State House Commission, established in 1900 to super vise construction of the Capitol, secured the advisory services of Barnard R. Gre-en, contractor and builder of Washington, D. C., who had erected tne Library of Congress building in Washington. The architect selected by the State House Commission was Theodore C. Linlc, St. Louis, Missouri. The design, selected from fourteen entries submitted, is typical of its era and is based on that of the National Capitol. When completed, it was considered an out standing example of pure renaissance classic architecture. Link, LU a native of Heidelberg, Germany, also designed the Union Station, LJ as well as other buildings in St. Louis, Missouri.
One of the New Capitol's most distinguished visitors was General Douglas C. Mac^Crthur, who addressed a joint session of the Mississippi Legislature on the steps of the building on March 22, 1952. Proceedings, .Connected with Laying the Corner Stone of Mississippi's New State House in the City of Jackson on June 3rd. 1903 (Jackson: Tucker Printi .ng House, 1903), 69-87, passim.
Souvenir of Mississippi. (Jacksoi]L, 1963), 10-13.
LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINATES LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE COORDINATES DEFINING A RECTANGLE LOCATING THE PROPERTY 3 DEFINING THE CENTER POINT OF A PROPERTY ROF LESS THAN TEN ACRES ————————— ————————————————————————— ————————————————————————— CORNER LATITUDE LONGITUDE LATITUDE LONGITUDE Degrees Minutes Seconds Degrees Minutes Seconds Degrees Minutes Seconds Degrees Minutes Seconds NW 32 o 19 , 4 . 90o 11 56- o , y . 0 , „ NE 32 o 19 . 3 - 90o 11 39- SE 32 o 18 . 48 - 90 o 11 42 - sw 32 o 18 - 51 - 90 o 11 58- APPROXIMATE ACREAGE OF NOMINATED PROPERTY: 11.2 - indudeS 6ntir6 blOCk CO ILIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COUNTY BOUNDARIES m STATE: CODE COUNTY ^"^~—— 1—— ~~~- CODE y/\V ' '• rj- ' ;/ "\ m STATE: CODE C O UN T/^vA "•;'••' P. ::rr;\;i:";' "' ••""• j ' \A —————CODE /.- ' . '..ULI •.--' ;;\ STATE: CODE COUNTY,:: "-; Uv-, tiUi > ,- io03,, ~Q ' ._ •',1 CODE !'-": •-••) STATE: CODE C O U rVfVt ["v !\ y ! f', . ' - • •'•.'.,/ CODE V\ REGiSi.-... -.•-/ :•:•:•:-:•:•:•:•::•:•: :•:-::•: ^•••:•:^•:•^:•^:•:•^^^:-^^^^>^::::•::^>^^>:•>>^-•::-:::-::s^^:-::::^:::;:::-^^:<-:•^^-:^o:-:-:-:-:•^:^•:-:•:•:-:-:•:-:•:•:-:•:•:-:•:•:-:•:•:•:•:•:•:•^:•^ ^mi-l^t:$$l£!ffi^^ NAME AND TITLE: N\/ '' ,»-'. :7''"r"( ' ' , \ \X Elbert Hilliard, Curator of History ~~~~~'— •"'" n ORGANIZATION DATE H Mississippi Department of Archives and History October 11,196 STREET AND NUMBER: 120 North State Street CITY OR TOWN: STATE CODE Jackson Miasissippi .„.,.,...... „,..,,„„.,.. ,,,,,,,,,,23
As the designated State Liaison Officer for the Na I hereby certify that this property is included in the tional Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-665), I hereby nominate this property for inclusion National Register. in the National Register and certify that it has been a /O evaluated according to the criteria and procedures set forth by the National Park Service. The recommended /v/i^/i) "h'ftyfatitL yh.i'isi'if /IM~ Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation level of significance of this nomination is: National [H State ^ Local Q MOV 251969 Date Name \^ Lf. /^(^j^^B^t^ ATTEST: /// - /// "* n (/ ^ r / Title Director. Miss. Dept. of IMJILJJJL V' ^M^U. Archives and History Keeper of The Rational Register //
Date October 14, 1969 nov ? • B» ^
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR STATE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Mississippi COUNTY NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES Hinds PROPERTY PHOTOGRAPH FORM FOR NPS USE ONLY ENTRY NUMBER (Type all entries - attach to or enclose with photograph)
New Capitol AND/OR HISTORIC:
STREETFronting AND NUMBER: Mississippi Street, between North President and N.Wes
CITY OR TOWN: Jackson STATE: Mississippi stt PHOTO cREDiT=Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
DATE OF PHOTO: jQfiQ
NEGATIVE FILED AT: Mississippi Department of Archives and History/^Jac
DESCRIBE VIEW, DIRECTION, ETC.
The New Capitol, fronting Mississippi Steet , south
.PS ftgfrer {//-/• 23- 0003
Title: I
JOG.
SOZ6S
Git "Jo- 5P. (P. 2?o.v 729
'Form 10-301 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR STATE (July 1969) NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Mississippi COUNTY NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES Hinds PROPERTY MAP FORM FOR NPS USE ONLY (Type alt entries - attach to or enclose with map) ENTRY NUMBER
COMMON: The N 6W Caitol AND/OR HISTORIC:
STREET AND NUM BER: Fronting Mississippi Street, between North President and N.West
CITY OR TOWN: Jackson STATE: COUNTY: CODE Mississippi Hinds 049
SOURCE: U.S.G.S. 7 1/2 1 , Jackson quadrangle '- \ SCALE: 1:24000 -\ DATE: 1963
TO BE INCLUDED ON ALL MAPS 1. Property broundaries where required. 2. North arrow. 3. Latitude and longitude reference.
NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
This form is for use in nominating or requesting determinations for individual properties and districts. See instructions in National Register Bulletin, How to Complete the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. If any item does not apply to the property being documented, enter "N/A" for "not applicable." For functions, architectural classification, materials, and areas of significance, enter only categories and subcategories from the instructions.
1. Name of Property Historic name: Mississippi State Capitol (Additional Documentation) _ Other names/site number: New Capitol______Name of related multiple property listing: __N/A______(Enter "N/A" if property is not part of a multiple property listing ______2. Location Street & number: Mississippi Street, between President Street and West Street City or town: Jackson___ State: MS______County: Hinds ______Not For Publication: Vicinity: ______3. State/Federal Agency Certification As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended, I hereby certify that this X nomination ___ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property ___X meets ___ does not meet the National Register Criteria. I recommend that this property be considered significant at the following level(s) of significance: _X__national ___statewide ___local Applicable National Register Criteria: ___A ___B _X__C ___D
Signature of certifying official/Title: Date ______State or Federal agency/bureau or Tribal Government
In my opinion, the property meets does not meet the National Register criteria.
Signature of commenting official: Date
Title : State or Federal agency/bureau or Tribal Government
1
United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Mississippi State Capitol Hinds County (Additional Documentation) Mississippi Name of Property County and State
______4. National Park Service Certification I hereby certify that this property is: entered in the National Register determined eligible for the National Register determined not eligible for the National Register removed from the National Register other (explain:) ______
______Signature of the Keeper Date of Action ______5. Classification Ownership of Property (Check as many boxes as apply.) Private:
Public – Local
Public – State X
Public – Federal
Category of Property (Check only one box.)
Building(s) X X
District
Site
Structure
Object
Sections 1-6 page 2
United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Mississippi State Capitol Hinds County (Additional Documentation) Mississippi Name of Property County and State
Number of Resources within Property (Do not include previously listed resources in the count) Contributing Noncontributing ____1______buildings
_____1______sites
______structures
6______1______objects
____7______1______Total
Number of contributing resources previously listed in the National Register ___1______6. Function or Use Historic Functions (Enter categories from instructions.) GOVERNMENT/capitol______
Current Functions (Enter categories from instructions.) GOVERNMENT/capitol______
Sections 1-6 page 3
United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Mississippi State Capitol Hinds County (Additional Documentation) Mississippi Name of Property County and State
______7. Description
Architectural Classification (Enter categories from instructions.) LATE 19th and 20th CENTURY REVIVALS/Classical Revival______LATE 19th and 20th CENTURY REVIVALS/ Beaux Arts______
Materials: (enter categories from instructions.) Principal exterior materials of the property: stone; granite; limestone; steel; terra cotta; glass ______
Narrative Description (Describe the historic and current physical appearance and condition of the property. Describe contributing and noncontributing resources if applicable. Begin with a summary paragraph that briefly describes the general characteristics of the property, such as its location, type, style, method of construction, setting, size, and significant features. Indicate whether the property has historic integrity.) ______Summary Paragraph
The Mississippi State Capitol is a large, monumental Classical Revival public building, designed by Theodore C. Link of St. Louis, which was begun in 1901 and completed in 1903. Although it is has been in use for well over a century, it is still often referred to as the “New Capitol,” in contrast to the Old Capitol, located several blocks away, which was completed in 1840. ______Narrative Description
Setting The Capitol is located in the downtown business district of Jackson, Mississippi, at the center of a large, park-like public square that occupies an area equivalent to four city blocks, bounded by Mississippi Street on the south, High Street on the north, President Street on the east, and West Street on the west. This tract of land measures 670 feet in length on its east and west sides and 715 feet on its north and south sides, and contains eleven acres. This area was initially laid out as Squares 5 North, 6 North, 14 North, and 15 North of the original 1822 plat of Jackson. This four- block tract was formerly the site of the old State Penitentiary, which had been built from 1836 to 1840 (at the same time as the Old Capitol), and had been designed by William Nichols, the architect of the Old Capitol and the
Section 7 page 4
United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Mississippi State Capitol Hinds County (Additional Documentation) Mississippi Name of Property County and State
Governor’s Mansion. The Penitentiary, a walled complex of brick buildings, was demolished in 1901 to clear the site for the construction of the new capitol. (Because of extensive excavation and grading of the site it is very unlikely that there are any significant archaeological remains of the Penitentiary.) The streets and blocks of the original part of downtown Jackson are angled about ten degrees east of a true north-south alignment. The Capitol grounds are immediately north of the northern boundary of the Smith Park Architectural District (NR), which extends for several blocks to the south. Within the district, facing the Capitol across Mississippi Street, is the Heber Ladner Building (State Executive Building), originally built in 1924 as the Mississippi Fire Insurance Company Building. Also across Mississippi Street, further to the west, at 321 Mississippi Street, is the Methodist Building, formerly the offices of the Mississippi Methodist Conference, built in 1957. To the west of the Capitol, across West Street, is the E. T. Woolfolk State Office Building, which was completed in 1950. Across from the Capitol grounds to the northwest, across High Street, is the new Mississippi Supreme Court Building, completed in 2006. (Part of its site was formerly occupied by the Carroll Gartin Justice Building, which had been completed in 1972.) To the northeast, at 550 High Street, is the Walter Sillers State Office Building, a twenty-story International Style building begun in 1970 and competed in 1972. On the twentieth floor of the Sillers Building are the administrative offices of the Governor and his staff, which had been located in the Capitol until 1976. East of the Capitol, facing it across President Street, is First Baptist Church, the sanctuary of which was originally completed in 1927. The Capitol building occupies the exact center of its site, at what was specified to be the intersection of the continuations of the center lines of Congress Street and College Street. The building is aligned with the street grid, and it is therefore angled about ten degrees east of a true north alignment. The main façade of the building faces southward, toward Mississippi Street, and is centered on Congress Street, which extends the south. (Congress Street originally continued north of the Capitol grounds on the same axis, but since the construction of the complex of government buildings to the north of the Capitol across High Street in the early 1970s, Congress Street has been interrupted and resumes another block further to the north.) The lateral axis of the Capitol building is aligned with the center of College Street to the east. (College Street does not continue west of the Capitol grounds.) Overall Composition and Exterior Extending 402 feet on its east-west axis and 225 feet on its north-south axis, the Mississippi State Capitol is a broad, symmetrical building, four stories in height, with a lofty central dome. It has a composite structural system, consisting of a steel frame encased by brick walls, which are faced on the exterior by stone. Broadly speaking, the form of the building can be described as a symmetrical five-part composition, consisting of a square central block, surmounted by a dome, with two lateral wings and two end blocks which contain the two legislative chambers. At first glance this seems an accurate description, but a more careful examination of the plan [see diagram] shows that the building has a more complex and more elegant shape, which could perhaps more accurately be described as a seven-part composition, in which the extreme ends of the composition are the semi- circular colonnaded apses. These apses are unique among existing state capitols, although the old Wisconsin state capitol (no longer extant) apparently had similar peristyles at its ends. The placement and proportion of these apses pick up the line of the primary lateral wall planes that extend between the center block and the projecting pavilions, curving the wall line and carrying it around to the other side of the building. This has the effect of enhancing the visual unity of the building. The apses also add to the unity of the design by echoing the form and detailing of the colonnaded drum of the dome. This arrangement gives the Mississippi State Capitol a compositional unity which is rare among domed capitol buildings, for in the designs of some capitols the placement a dome and drum atop an otherwise rectilinear building seems rather abrupt and arbitrary, as if it is simply “stuck on” instead of being an integral element of the overall composition of the building.
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United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Mississippi State Capitol Hinds County (Additional Documentation) Mississippi Name of Property County and State
Diagram of the composition of the Mississippi State Capitol.
The Mississippi capitol contains four full stories, plus a partial basement. In the original plans, the basement was identified as the “sub-basement.” The ground floor was originally referred to as the “basement” but is now called the first floor. The main level of the building was originally referred to as the first floor, but it is now called the second story. The next level was originally labeled as the second floor, but is now called the third floor, and the top level was originally referred to as the attic, but is now called the fourth floor. (The present-day floor numbering system is used in this document, for consistency.) These various floor levels are articulated on the exterior of the building. Where the basement is visible on the exterior (in a light well at the west end and in three small exterior stairwells), it has walls of rough, rock-faced ashlar. The walls of the first story walls are clad in rusticated blocks with deep channel joints. The second and third story walls are finished in smooth blocks of coursed ashlar. At the top of the third story is a broad continuous entablature, above which are the ashlar walls of the fourth story. The exterior walls are clad in warm-toned, light gray Bedford limestone from Indiana. The base is Georgia granite. 1 The architectural character of the building is a rigorously disciplined and erudite form of Classical Revival, in the stylistic mode variously called the “Neo- Classical Revival” or “Academic Roman Revival,”2 although the interior also contains features expressing some other stylistic influences. At the center of the symmetrical seven-part composition of the building is the main block, which is surmounted by the primary dome, raised upon a high drum that has an encircling colonnade of Corinthian columns. Atop each of the four corners of the central block is a decorative sculpted structure resembling a pedestal, topped by a spherical globe light. These elevated structures contribute to the compositional unity of the building by serving as visual anchors for the dome, providing an intermediary feature between the dome and the roof and relating the dome to the
1 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone of Mississippi’s New State House in the City of Jackson on June 3, 1903, p. 69; “The New Capitol,” in the State of Mississippi, Official and Statistical Register (1904), p. 207; and “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 4. 2 Marcus Whiffen, in his widely-used American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), pp. 166-171, uses the term “Neo-Classical Revival.” Alan Gowans, in Styles and Types of North American Architecture: Social Function and Cultural Expression (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 87, uses the term “Academic Roman Revival Style.”
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United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Mississippi State Capitol Hinds County (Additional Documentation) Mississippi Name of Property County and State
four corners of the center block.3 At either side of the central block, the wall planes step back slightly, forming the east and west wings and expressing the portion of the building which, on all four stories, contains rows of offices along either side of broad central corridors. At the outer ends of these office wings are secondary blocks that contain the chambers for the two houses of the Legislature, the Senate in the east and the House of Representatives in the west. These blocks are expressed externally by projecting pavilions, elaborated on the north and south façades by recessed monumental Corinthian tetrastyle porticoes. These secondary blocks are topped by low, shallow domes which serve as skylights for the legislative chambers below. Extending beyond the pavilions, at the east and west ends of the building, are the semi-circular colonnaded apses. The most prominent feature of the Capitol is the dome, which is set upon a tall drum encircled by a colonnade of 24 Corinthian columns, supporting a balustrade. Piercing the wall of the drum behind the columns is a series of tall rectangular windows which illuminate the Rotunda below. The drum continues above the balustrade, where its wall is pierced by smaller rectangular windows which provide light to the space between the internal and external domes. The dome itself is ribbed, and is surmounted by a lantern. The lantern is itself capped by a small dome, upon which is positioned a large sculpted eagle, made of copper and covered in gold leaf. At the center of the south façade of the building, a projection in the form of a classical temple extends forward from the square central block, culminating in a broad monumental prostyle portico, two stories in height, surmounted by a pediment with an elaborately sculpted tympanum that was designed by Robert P. Bringhurst of St. Louis. The portico is supported by six fluted Corinthian columns. The portico is approached by a broad, long ascent of stone steps which rises a full story in height. Within the portico are three double-leaf doors which have historically served as the main ceremonial entrance to the building, although this entrance is now used only on special occasions. (Nowadays the south entrance into the building is through the doors that open directly into the first story from a porte cochere located underneath the portico projection.) On the north side of the building, a similar gable-roofed projection extends out from the central block, but it does not have a monumental portico. Instead, it opens to an upper terrace, from which two matching curved staircases descend to ground level. The north entrance to the building today, however, is a door at ground level, between the lower ends of the two staircases. The monumental portico and its broad steps are the distinctive features of the south façade, and the gable-roofed projection, open terrace, and curved stairs are the distinctive features of the north façade; otherwise the two facades of the building are identically composed, so that the building is essentially symmetrical on both its north-south and its east-west axes. The exterior of the building is unified by the exclusive use of the Corinthian order throughout. The six columns of the main portico, the four columns on each of the recessed porticoes of the secondary blocks, and the columns of the peristyle apses are all of the same size and appearance, and a continuous Corinthian entablature, with a modillion cornice, wraps the entire building. Interior, First Floor As previously noted, the present-day south entrance to the building is through the doors that open directly into the first story from a porte cochere located underneath the portico projection. This leads to a lobby on the periphery of the first-story level of the rotunda. This area is open to the main rotunda, on the story above, through a circular oculus in the ceiling. Extending northward from this “lower rotunda” is a corridor leading to the lobby inside the north entrance. The north entrance lobby is notable because its ceiling is made of copper, in order to avoid damage from any leaks that might occur from the open terrace located directly above.
3 These pedestal-like structure are analogous to the tourelles (so called by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale) at the four corners of the central block at the base of the dome of the Rhode Island State House (1895-1905), by McKim, Mead and White. See illustrations in Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale, Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), p. 221; Susan W. Thrane and Tom Patterson, State Houses: America’s 50 State Capitol Buildings (Erin, Ontario, Canada: Boston Mills Press, 2005), p. 148; and Richard Guy Wilson, McKim, Mead & White, Architects (New York: Rizzoli, 1983), p. 162.
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United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Mississippi State Capitol Hinds County (Additional Documentation) Mississippi Name of Property County and State
Because what is now considered the first story was originally regarded as a basement area, rather than a ceremonial space, it’s detailing and surface finishes are much simpler than those of the upper stories. This area has tile floors, and the wainscots of its walls are finished with glazed white “subway” tiles. (The actual tiles in this area are not original, but are reproductions, circa 1979-82, of the original tile surfaces.)4 Extending to the east and west from the “lower rotunda” are corridors lined with offices. At the end of the eastern corridor are two of the Capitol’s most distinctive and unusual rooms. Directly at the end of the corridor is a broad circular room with stout, unfluted Ionic columns around its perimeter and one lone column in the center. This room, located directly below the former Supreme Court Chamber, and two stories below the Senate Chamber, was originally designated as the Historical Hall, or Hall of History. It housed the Department of Archives and History from 1903 until 1941.5 (Gradually, as the Department’s collections increased, exhibits expanded out of this room into the “basement” corridors and the lower rotunda.) Near the Hall of History, off a side corridor with its own door to the outside, is a small but richly detailed room with an apse in its north end. This room was originally designed to be a ladies’ reception room for the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). The wainscoting of its walls and the room’s two Corinthian columns are finished in Rose Claire scagliola, and the floor is decorated with pink mosaic tile. Both this room and the Hall of History are now used as committee rooms for the House of Representatives. 6 In the north corners of the periphery of the lower rotunda are two elevators providing access to the upper stories. The carriages and mechanical systems themselves have been replaced, but there were elevators in these locations originally, installed by the Otis Elevator Company. The glass-sided elevator carriages allow riders to see the white glazed tiled walls and stained glass windows in the original elevator shafts. 7 An iron staircase also leads from the lower rotunda to the story above. Interior, Second Floor Emerging onto the second story from the elevators or the stair, one enters the north side of the main Rotunda. This vast central space is open to the dome high above. The walls and floor of the Rotunda are finished in white Italian marble trimmed with black Belgian marble. In its diagonal corners are huge pedestals that rise a full story in height. Set into the face of each pedestal is a white marble aedicule containing a statuary niche. Upon the pedestals are pairs of colossal Composite Order columns, finished in Pavanazzo scagliola, that support the drum of the dome. These columns have steel cores that are integral parts of the building’s structural frame. Balconies overlook the Rotunda on all sides from the upper floors. 8 The most surprising and distinctive aspect of the appearance of the Rotunda is its illumination by 750 exposed electric lightbulbs. 9 While this might seem strange to a viewer today when electric lighting is commonplace, it should be remembered that when the Capitol was completed in 1903, electric lighting was a new and cutting-edge technological development. Link’s utilization of 4,750 electric lights throughout the building was a visual celebration of this new technology. This is shown in the minutes of the State House Commission, which recorded
4 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 9. 5 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 9, and “The New Capitol,” Official and Statistical Register (1908), p. 211. The original plans of the building, prepared in 1900, designated this space as the “Historical Hall,” even though the Mississippi Department of Archives and History was not established as a state agency until 1902. 6 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 9, and “The New Capitol,” Official and Statistical Register (1908), p. 211. 7 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 7. 8 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 7, and “The New Capitol,” Official and Statistical Register (1908), p. 209. There is a color photograph of the Rotunda in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses: America’s 50 State Capitol Buildings, p. 138. 9 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 7. The use of exposed electric lightbulbs in this manner is perhaps not as unusual as might be supposed. Color photographs in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses: America’s 50 State Capitol Buildings show rows of exposed electric lightbulbs in the state library of the Rhode Island State House (p. 149), in the House Chamber and Governor’s Reception Room of the Minnesota State Capitol (pp. 158-159), and in the House of Representatives Chamber of the Wisconsin State Capitol (p. 208).
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United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Mississippi State Capitol Hinds County (Additional Documentation) Mississippi Name of Property County and State
that the public was invited to view the spectacle of the illuminated capitol when the electric lights were first fully tested on the evening of September 3, 1903.10 Immediately south of the Rotunda, on what is now the second story, is the vestibule of the historic main entrance to the building, opening from the front portico. The walls of this vestibule are finished in blue Vermont marble above a base of black Belgian marble.11 At the north of the Rotunda is the Grand Staircase. This elaborate marble staircase ascends to the third and fourth stories. The half-story landing between the second and third stories is the location of one of the Capitols most dramatic features – a three-panel set of brilliantly colored “opalescent” stained glass windows, made by the studio of Louis J. Millet of Chicago. The center panel shows the image of a woman, symbolizing Mississippi, holding a book and a sword. In the right panel is the image of an American Indian, and in the left is the image of a pioneer settler. A story above this, the upper half-story landing has a vaulted ceiling with elaborate plaster decorations, and the balustrade is embellished with marble lions’ heads.12 Extending eastward and westward from the Rotunda are broad corridors lined with offices. The corridors on this floor are finished in white Italian marble with black Belgian marble trim. 13 The corridors are lined with Doric pilasters, and the beams that span the ceiling are finished as fully-detailed Doric entablatures. At the end of the eastern corridor is the entrance to the former Supreme Court Chamber. (The Supreme Court relocated to the Gartin Justice Building in 1972, and more recently to the new Supreme Court Building.) This room features a semi-circular rear wall which is positioned within the apse at the east end of the building. The walls of this room are finished in Pavanazzo scagliola with wainscoting of Georgia Verde Antique marble. 14 The peripheral columns and other detailing of this room are in the Greek Doric order, finished in scagliola. This room is now used as a Senate committee room. (A photograph of the Supreme Court Chamber was included with the original National Register nomination in 1969.) At the end of the western corridor of the second story is the suite of rooms formerly occupied by the State Law Library. (The library relocated to the Gartin Justice Building in 1972, and more recently to the new Supreme Court Building.) Just inside its entrance is a lobby which connects to offices to the north and the former Reading Room to the south. These rooms were restored in 1979-82, and now serve as committee meeting rooms for the House of Representatives. Between these two rooms, separated from the lobby by a partition with stained glass panels, is the area that formerly contained the library stacks. This area now contains offices and small meeting rooms. Interior, Third Floor The third story of the Capitol (originally the second floor) is the location of the Legislative chambers and the Governor’s Office suite. An ascent of the Grand Staircase, past the stained glass window on its first landing, leads to the second level of the main Rotunda, where the central open space is surrounded by iron balconies overlooking the floor of the Rotunda below. Opposite the Grand Staircase, on the south side of the Rotunda, is the Governor’s Office suite. These rooms occupy the area directly over the original main lobby. These rooms are now used as a ceremonial office for the Governor, whose working offices are now located in the Walter Sillers Building nearby. Within this area is the ceremonial Governor’s Office itself, which was historically referred to as the Governor’s Reception Room. This elaborate chamber has a particularly fine mosaic floor laid in the style of Ancient Rome. The dado along the lower walls is finished in Numidian marble. The two elaborate French Renaissance style mantels were originally made of the same marble, but the original mantels had been removed at some time prior to the 1970s. They were replicated during the restoration of 1979-82, but replacement in marble was cost-prohibitive, so they were
10 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 582, 594 (Official Records Series 637, in the collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History). 11 “The New Capitol,” Official and Statistical Register (1908), p. 209. 12 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 11. There is a color photograph of the stained glass windows in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses: America’s 50 State Capitol Buildings, p. 140. 13 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 10. 14 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 10.
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reproduced in wood and painted to simulate the Numidian marble.15 The most impressive feature of the room, however, it its vaulted ceiling with ornate plaster moldings. In 1930, some alterations to the Governor’s Office were made under the direction of architect Vinson B. Smith, Jr. At that time, elaborate panels were installed at each end of the vault, adorned with heraldic griffins executed in plaster.16 To the east and west of the Rotunda are broad corridors lined with offices. The corridors on this floor are finished in Rose Claire scagliola framed in Champagne scagliola, with wainscoting of Georgia Verde Antique marble and bases and door surrounds of Belgian black marble. The corridors are lined with fluted Ionic pilasters of Verde Antique marble.17 The ceilings of the third story corridors contain glass blocks which are set into the floor of the story above, transmitting light from the skylights that illuminate the fourth story corridors. At the end of the eastern third-story corridor is the entrance to the Senate Chamber. The entrance opens into a lobby with walls of white Italian marble trimmed with Tennessee marble. At the north and south ends of this lobby are doors entering into the Senate Chamber itself. The Senate Chamber is one of the Capitol’s most ornate rooms. It is two-stories in height with an apsidal east end. Along its walls are monumental Corinthian columns of violet Breccia scagliola. Over the room is a broad dome containing a skylight consisting of twelve stained glass panels in a sinuous Art Nouveau pattern. The walls are finished in panels of Pavanazzo scagliola framed by St. Baum scagliola, with Egyptian scagliola wainscoting. Overlooking the room on three sides are visitors’ galleries.18 At the end of the western corridor of the third story is the entrance to the House of Representatives Chamber. The corridor is shorter in this wing because of the larger size of the House Chamber. Immediately within the entrance is a lobby with walls of Tennessee Pink marble trimmed with Knoxville marble. At the north and south ends of this lobby are doors entering into the House Chamber itself. This huge room is two-stories in height with an apsidal west end. Spanning the room is a broad dome containing a skylight made of eight stained glass panels in a sinuous Art Nouveau pattern, somewhat resembling the dome in the Senate chamber, but with a different design. Unlike the Senate Chamber, this room does not have columns along its side walls. Instead, the walls of the chamber curve inward at the gallery level to become part of the dome itself, with the visitors’ galleries and the western apse opening from it through broad round arches. The walls of the chamber are finished in Sienna scagliola with wainscoting of Belgian black marble.19 Interior, Fourth Floor The fourth story is arranged similarly to the third story, with wide corridors, lined with offices, extending to the east and west of the Rotunda.20 At the ends of the corridors are the entrances to the visitors’ galleries overlooking the Senate and House chambers. The fourth story corridors are illuminated by skylights. The light from these skylights is transmitted to the corridors of the third story, below, through glass blocks set into the fourth-story floor.21 Among the notable features of the Capitol are the many fine examples of stained glass and other types of decorative architectural glass, showing several different stylistic influences, including Art Nouveau and Prairie Style. The art glass throughout the building was designed by the studio of Louis J. Millet of Chicago.22 Another notable aspect of the design is the extensive use of scagliola, or “art marble,” which was used instead of marble in many places throughout the Capitol, particularly for the finishes of columns and upper wall surfaces. The
15 Kenneth H. P’Pool, email communication with Lawson Newman, October 29, 2013. 16 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), pp. 11-12. 17 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 11. 18 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), pp. 13-14. 19 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), pp. 15-16. 20 The fourth story was originally called the attic floor, but the term was used in its classical sense, to refer to the top story of a classical building, above the line or the cornice, and not in the modern sense denoting a storage space tucked under the roof. 21 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 12. 22 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, p. 74.
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scagliola work in the Mississippi Capitol is believed to be among the finest and most extensive in the United States. The scagliola was installed by the Art Marble Company of Chicago.23 Historical integrity of the Mississippi State Capitol The Mississippi State Capitol possesses an exceptionally high degree of historical integrity in all respects: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. The exterior of the building and the major architecturally significant spaces of the interior are original and unchanged in their design, materials, and workmanship. The building has undergone very few changes since its construction. Its few changes have mostly been either upgrades to its utilities or alterations within some of the office areas. Among the few other changes were a remodeling of the Governor’s Office in 1930, which added plasterwork features that are now regarded as significant in their own right, and an extensive program of painting in 1934, under the auspices of the Civil Works Administration (CWA), which is also regarded as being significant in its own right. The Capitol underwent a complete restoration and renovation from 1979 to 1982 under the overall direction of Jackson architects Lewis-Eaton. During this work, all of the architecturally significant interior spaces were restored to their historical appearance, retaining the noteworthy 1930 and 1934 design elements. The interiors of the less important office areas, however, were redesigned to increase usable office space. Also at this time the building’s utilities were completely replaced, and air-conditioning was installed. Precedents for the design and its major features It can be readily observed that the overall composition of the Mississippi State Capitol resembles the overall composition of the United States Capitol, but beyond a certain similarity of function and general organization, the buildings are quite different. The dome, while somewhat suggestive of the dome of the U.S. Capitol, is distinctly different from it in design, having no oeil-de-boeuf windows in the dome proper, nor the “secondary attic” with its “chaplet of consoles” (to use the wording of Henry Hope Reed),24 though the drums of both domes have encircling Corinthian colonnades (peristyles). The peristyle of the U.S. Capitol has 36 columns; 25 the Mississippi capitol has 24. The U.S. Capitol’s dome is proportionally much taller than the walls of the building itself.26 The dome of the Mississippi capitol is actually much closer in design to that of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, which was begun in 1675 and completed in 1710.27 The Mississippi dome has similar proportions and has the same configuration as St. Paul’s: the drum is encircled by a Corinthian peristyle surmounted by a balustrade, above which is a single-tiered attic, the wall of which is pierced by square windows, and the surface of the roof of the dome has no oeils-de-boeuf. The lantern, however, differs in design from both the U.S. Capitol and St. Paul’s. The origin of the specific design of the dome on this building is a matter of longstanding controversy. Link’s original competition design had a lower dome of a completely different design, but his approved construction drawings, finished several months later, show the present dome. Several important changes to the originally proposed design were made in order to accommodate the recommendations of Bernard R. Green, who advised the Mississippi State House Commission in their selection of an architect based on their proposed designs. Green had recommended that Link’s design be selected and that Link be hired as the architect, and he had made recommendations for improvements to Link’s proposal; but Green’s recommendations did not specifically include the addition of a larger central dome. The inclusion of a larger dome might perhaps have been Link’s own idea, or it might have been suggested by one or more members of the State House Commission. The controversial aspect of the
23 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, p. 74. 24 Henry Hope Reed, The United States Capitol: Its Architecture and Decoration (New York, W.W. Norton, 2005), p. 47. 25 Reed, The United States Capitol: Its Architecture and Decoration, p. 45. 26 Reed, The United States Capitol: Its Architecture and Decoration, p. 45. 27 Bannister Fletcher, A History of Architecture, eighteenth edition, revised by J. C. Palmes (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975), pp. 1014, 1016-1019; Tricia Simmonds, St. Paul’s Cathedral (Bath, England: Unichrome, 1992), p. 47.
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matter, however, is the design of the dome itself. Architect George R. Mann claimed that he had provided the design of the dome to Link. In a letter dating from 1937, Mann wrote: This Mississippi Capitol dome has a curious history. I was one of the competitors for the Mississippi Capitol but the Board selected the plans of Theodore Link of St. Louis…Shortly after the competition was decided I received a letter from Mr. Link, who was a warm personal friend, stating the Capitol Commission of Mississippi, in selecting his plan, had made it a condition that he eliminate the campanile and place a dome like the one I had on my design on the building. Courteously, he asked me if I had any objections to his using this design. Of course I told him I would be glad to have him use it and sent him the design of the dome I had on my drawings, and that was the way it was built.28 Mann had prepared the original plans for the Arkansas capitol, and had submitted a proposed preliminary design for the Mississippi capitol competition, which was not selected. No drawing of Mann’s proposed design for Mississippi has survived to provide any documentation for its dome. That proposed design, however was apparently the plan that Green addressed as no. 8 in his report, saying “The ornamental detail of the exterior lacks the strength required for a monumental building. The domes are weak and thin in appearance.”29 It seems implausible that Link would have asked Mann for permission to use a design for the dome that Green had considered “weak and thin in appearance,” or that the Commission would have endorsed such a request.30 However, because Mann’s proposed design has been lost, there is insufficient specific documentation to settle the issue definitively. (In an ironic twist, the dome of the Arkansas State Capitol, added to that building under the direction of Cass Gilbert, who replaced Mann as the project architect, has a peristyle drum and was supposedly based on the design of the dome of the Mississippi Capitol, instead of Mann’s original design, which was based on the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.31) The Corinthian portico of the Mississippi Capitol with its sculptural tympanum is clearly a paraphrase of the main portico of the U.S. Capitol, though it has six columns, where the projecting center portion of the U.S. Capitol portico has eight columns. The compositional motif of placing the main ceremonial entrance of the building within a monumental pedimented portico at the top of a long ascent of steps is less common among state capitol buildings than might be supposed. First used at the Virginia capitol, the motif appeared on several Greek Revival capitols during the antebellum period, but was rarely used during the late Victorian period, appearing only on the Kansas and Illinois. Mississippi is the earliest of the American Renaissance capitols to exhibit this motif, which was later used on the capitols of Idaho (1905-20), Utah (1912-15), Missouri (1913-17), Oklahoma (1914-17), Washington (1922- 28), and West Virginia (1924-32). South Dakota and Montana have smaller porticoes without pediments. Arkansas has a recessed portico with an unsculpted pediment, evidently based on the portico of the Palace of Fine Art at the World’s Columbian Exposition. Much more typical was the placement of the main entrance within a loggia set below a monumental portico. Capitols with this other entrance arrangement include those of Massachusetts, Maine, North Carolina, Tennessee, California, Iowa, Indiana, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Kentucky, and Wisconsin. Rhode Island, Minnesota, and Wyoming have variations on that theme.
28 George R. Mann, in a letter to his children, dated September 30, 1937, quoted in Blake Wintory, “A Tale of Two Domes: Mississippi and Arkansas” (Part I), in the blog Preservation in Mississippi, August 22, 2011, http://misspreservation.com/2011/08/22/architectural-twins-mississippi-and-arkansas-state-capitol-domes/. 29 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, p. 24 (Official Records Series 637, in the collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History); and Thomas Rosell [pseud.], “A Rosetta Stone and Truth about the Dome?” Preservation in Mississippi, September 6, 2011, http://misspreservation.com/2011/09/06/a-rosetta-stone-and-truth-about-the- dome/. 30 Thomas Rosell [pseud.], “A Rosetta Stone and Truth about the Dome?” Preservation in Mississippi, September 6, 2011. The controversy surrounding the origin of the design of the dome is the subject of a series of articles in the blog Preservation in Mississippi: Blake Wintory, “A Tale of Two Domes: Mississippi and Arkansas” (Part I), August 22, 2011; Blake Wintory, “A Tale of Two Domes, Part II,” August 23, 2011; Blake Wintory, “A Tale of Two Domes, Part III,” August 24, 2011; Blake Wintory, “A Tale of Two Domes, Finale,” August 25, 2011; and Thomas Rosell [pseud.], “A Rosetta Stone and Truth about the Dome?” September 6, 2011. 31 Blake Wintory, “A Tale of Two Domes, Finale,” August 25, 2011.
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The restrained Neoclassicism of the design of the Mississippi Capitol and the combination of the colonnaded dome and the monumental portico suggest another possible influence on the design. Considering that Theodore Link resided for a time in Paris, where he was a student of architecture and engineering, it seems possible that one inspiration for the design might have been the Panthéon in Paris (1757-64), which has both a dome with a Corinthian peristyle drum similar in design to St. Paul’s and a pedimented monumental Corinthian portico. When the Panthéon is viewed from the front, the visual relationship between the dome and the portico is similar to the relationship of those features on the Mississippi Capitol.32 There are few well-known buildings that might have served as a precedent for the colonnaded apses. The old state capitol of Wisconsin (no longer extant) had similar apses, but they were awkwardly proportioned and did not relate well to the architectural character of the rest of the building. Perhaps the best known building with a peristyle apse is the Merchants’ Exchange Building in Philadelphia (1832-34, William Strickland, architect) (National Historic Landmark, 2001). Another possible inspiration for the peristyle apses may have been the design of domes with colonnaded drums, like as the Mississippi Capitol’s dome, for if a colonnaded drum were to be sliced in half, and one half placed at each end of a building, the result would be similar to the peristyle apses of the Mississippi Capitol. (Link, however, did not derive the design of the apses from the design of his own dome for the Capitol, for a drawing of his original competition design shows that the apses were included in the original design, which did not include a peristyle drum supporting its center dome.) Another possible source for the idea of colonnaded apses if derived from the shape of circular structures with peristyles might have been buildings of the ‘Tempietto” type – freestanding circular buildings with encircling colonnades, such as the ancient Roman Temple of Vesta in Rome and the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli,33 and the Renaissance Tempietto (1502-10) in Rome.34 Interestingly, there were two Neoclassical Tempietto-like buildings with monumental peristyle colonnades in the Corinthian order at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, at least one of which housed, surprisingly, a chocolate shop. 35 It is clear, then, that while the Mississippi State Capitol incorporates elements that may have been inspired by or borrowed from the designs of some other buildings, the design itself is distinctive and singular.
Other contributing features on the Capitol Grounds. Besides the Mississippi State Capitol itself, there are several other notable features associated with it, including the Capitol grounds and several commemorative objects, most of which have historical significance as well.
A. The Capitol Grounds. The eleven-acre park-like setting of the Capitol building is considered a contributing historic landscape. Although its exact historic appearance has not been clearly documented, the site has continuously been a tree-shaded park landscape with winding drives and paved walks since soon after the completion of the Capitol building, and is a very important part of its physical and visual presence in downtown Jackson.
B. The Prow Ornament of the Second U.S.S. Mississippi.
32 The Panthéon in Paris is pictured in James Stevens Curl, Classical Architecture: An Introduction to Its Vocabulary and Essentials, with a Select Glossary of Terms (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001), p. 122; Bannister Fletcher, A History of Architecture, eighteenth edition, revised by J. C. Palmes (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975), pp. 913-914; Frédérique Lemerle and Yves Pauwels, Baroque Architecture, 1600-1750 (Paris: Flammarion, 2008), p. 224; and Heinfried Wischermann, Paris: An Architectural Guide (Venice: Arsenale Editrice, 1997, reprinted 2005), p. 80. 33 Bannister Fletcher, A History of Architecture, eighteenth edition, revised by J. C. Palmes (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975), pp. 283-284. 34 Curl, Classical Architecture, pp. 86-89; Bannister Fletcher, A History of Architecture, eighteenth edition, , pp. 821, 823. 35 Norman Bolotin and Christine Laing, The World’s Columbian Exposition: The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002), p. 52 and 58. They were located immediately adjacent to The Peristyle, a monumental colonnaded entrance pavilion.
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Located on the Capitol grounds, at the eastern edge of the parking area immediately north of the building, is a monument consisting of the prow ornament of an early twentieth century battleship, the second U.S.S. Mississippi, mounted on a concrete base. The U.S.S. Mississippi (BB-23) was launched in 1905 and formally commissioned in 1908. At the time of its commissioning it was adorned with an elaborate prow (or bow) ornament (also referred to as figurehead). At the end of the nineteenth century and into the earliest years of the twentieth century, most of the larger vessels of the U.S. Navy had ornaments of this type, which could be removed when a ship was prepared for combat. It appears, however, that in 1909 an order was issued by the Secretary of the Navy requiring that these ornaments be removed from all Navy ships. The Mississippi made a visit to Pascagoula, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, in 1909, at which time the Governor Edmund P. Noel, on behalf of the state, presented a magnificent silver service to the ship. Evidently he learned about that time that the bow ornament had been removed, or was soon to be removed, for in August of that year he requested that the figurehead be lent to the state to be placed on display at the Capitol. The ornament was sent to Mississippi by rail from the Philadelphia Navy Yard in December of 1909. About six months after its arrival, it was mounted on a temporary stand and placed on display at the Capitol. Several years later, in 1914, the ship (which had been rendered essentially obsolete, soon after its construction, by British naval developments) was decommissioned and sold to Greece. About that time, the prow ornament was permanently mounted on a concrete base and placed on display on the Capitol grounds, where it remains today.36
C. The Monument to the Women of the Confederacy. Located in the center of the paved walkway directly in front of the Capitol, on the south side of the grounds, the Monument to the Women of the Confederacy is an elegant bronze sculpture portraying a woman attending a wounded soldier while a second woman places a wreath upon her head. The sculpture is raised upon a tall base made of Italian marble, with inscriptions on each of its four sides, honoring the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of the men who fought for the Confederacy. The cornerstone for the monument was laid in 1912, and the bronze sculpture, designed by noted sculptor Belle Kinney and cast by Tiffany Studios, was made and installed in 1917.37 It is one of the finest sculptural monuments in Mississippi, and it is perhaps the largest and most elaborate bronze sculptural work in the state outside of the Vicksburg National Military Park.
D. Flagstaffs. Two flagstaffs, located on either side of the front approach to the Capitol, were purchased and erected in 1922 under the auspices of the State Bond Improvement Commission. The 80-foot poles were manufactured by the Pole & Tube Works, Inc., of Newark, New Jersey.38 The particular significance of these flagpoles is that they were purchased under the direction of Theodore C. Link, while he was the supervising architect for the State Bond Improvement Commission. They are the only visible features related to Link’s second period of association with the Capitol. The flags of the United States and the State of Mississippi are flown from these two flagstaffs year-round. (There are also flagpoles on the domes over the House and Senate chambers on the Capitol building, but flags are only flown atop the Capitol when the Legislature is in session.)
E. German field howitzers from World War I.
36 Documentation, including a xerographic copy of an article, “Monument to an Old Battleship,” Ships and the Sea Quarterly (Winter 1958), p. 47, filed in the Subject File “Mississippi, U.S.S. (2nd) (1905),” Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The second U.S.S. Mississippi, after having been sold to Greece in 1914, was renamed the Kilkis. She was sunk in an attack by German aircraft during the German invasion of Greece in World War II. A new U.S.S. Mississippi (BB-41), the third ship to bear that name, was commissioned in 1917 and saw service in the Second World War. 37 Subject file, “Monument to the Women of the Confederacy,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History; and Elise L. Smith, “Belle Kinney and the Confederate Women’s Monument,” Southern Quarterly, 32:4 (Summer 1944), pp. 6-31 38 Records of the State Bond Improvement Commission, Old Capitol file, Series 666.
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Located near the flagstaffs in front of the Capitol building are two German field guns from World War I. Both are examples of the 150-millimeter heavy field howitzer, model 13 (15cm schwere Feldhaubitze 13). They represent two variations of the design, one having a longer barrel than the other. The two field guns are war trophies from the First World War that were allocated to the State of Mississippi by the federal government in 1924. They were placed on the grounds of the Capitol in 1925.39
F. Liberty Bell replica. In 1950, as part of a national Savings Bond drive, each state and territory of the Union was presented with a full- size, functional replica of the Liberty Bell, commissioned by the U.S. Treasury Department but paid for by private contributions. The bells were cast at the Paccard Foundry in Annecy-le-Vieux, France. Mississippi’s Liberty Bell was presented to the state on July 4, 1950.40 It is displayed at the front of the main entrance walk on the south side of the Capitol Grounds. Identical replicas of the Liberty Bell, presented to other states and territories at this same time, have been placed on public display at or near numerous other state capitols, including the capitols of Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Oregon, and South Dakota. Although it is more than 50 years old, because this commemorative object postdates the historic architectural features of the Capitol, and has no specific historical connection with the building, it is considered to be a non-contributing feature within the context of this documentation.
Altogether, the Mississippi State Capitol and its associated site and monuments comprise an ensemble consisting of one previously-listed building, one contributing site, six contributing objects (two monuments, two flagstaffs, and two field guns), and one non-contributing object.
39 Biennial Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Mississippi for the Years 1924-1925, pp. 57-58 and p. 68. The report specifically mentions two 150-mm howitzers that were to be placed on the grounds of the New Capitol. 40 “State Accepts Liberty Bell in Formal Ceremony,” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), July 5, 1950. A xerographic copy of that article is filed, along with other information, in the Subject file, “Liberty Bell,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
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______8. Statement of Significance
Applicable National Register Criteria (Mark "x" in one or more boxes for the criteria qualifying the property for National Register listing.)
A. Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history.
B. Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past.
X C. Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction.
D. Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
Criteria Considerations (Mark “x” in all the boxes that apply.)
A. Owned by a religious institution or used for religious purposes
B. Removed from its original location
C. A birthplace or grave
D. A cemetery
E. A reconstructed building, object, or structure
F. A commemorative property
G. Less than 50 years old or achieving significance within the past 50 years
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Areas of Significance (Enter categories from instructions.) ARCHITECTURE______
Period of Significance 1900-1935______
Significant Dates 1900______1901______1903______
Significant Person (Complete only if Criterion B is marked above.) ______
Cultural Affiliation ______
Architect/Builder Architect: Link, Theodore______Builder: Wells, W. A. & W. E. (Wells Brothers Company)______Glasswork: Millet, Louis J. Sculptor: Bringhurst, Robert P. ___Sculptor: Kinney, Belle______
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Statement of Significance Summary Paragraph (Provide a summary paragraph that includes level of significance, applicable criteria, justification for the period of significance, and any applicable criteria considerations.)
Background for this Additional Documentation The Mississippi State Capitol was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 25, 1969. At that time, the submission standards were much less rigorous than they are now, so the documentation was quite brief. The building was recognized at that time for state-level significance in the areas of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Politics. This document is intended to provide much more extensive information, at current documentation standards, showing that the building is nationally significant under Criterion C in the area of Architecture. Summary The Mississippi State Capitol is nationally significant as the first complete expression of academic Classicism in a state capitol building outside of the Northeast. It vividly represents the overwhelming extent to which academic Classicism was embraced by the American public and governmental leaders as the national style for civic architecture from the 1890s through the 1910s. This exceptionally fine public building combining the Beaux Arts and Neoclassical Revival styles was built from 1901 to 1903 in what was then a very small and provincial southern city, as the capitol building for a southern state still recovering from the physical and economic devastation of the Civil War and the tremendous social upheaval brought about by the War and Reconstruction. Moreover, as the work of a single architect, built in a single construction campaign spanning only three years, and having had only minor alterations since its completion, the Mississippi State Capitol exhibits a unity of design, a fidelity to the original plans, and a degree of architectural integrity since its completion that are very rare among state capitol buildings of the American Renaissance era. The period of significance extends from 1901, when construction began, to 1935, when notable interior painting done under the auspices of the Civil Works Administration (CWA) was completed. This span of years encompasses the construction of the building (1901-03), the development of the grounds, the placement of two notable monuments on the grounds (1914 and 1917), work done under the State Bond Improvement Commission (1920-23), renovation of the Governor’s office (1930), and the painting done under the CWA (1934-35). In addition to its significance as a landmark in the spread of academic Classicism as a national style, the Mississippi Capitol is notable as arguably the finest and most refined work of the architect Theodore C. Link. Although he is best known and most widely cited in architectural histories as one of the architects of Union Station in St. Louis (1891-94) (National Historic Landmark, 1970), Link was a very talented and very versatile architect whose oeuvre embraces a wide range of building types and architectural styles in numerous locations from the Pennsylvania and Virginia to the Midwest to the Deep South. His architectural work and its importance are addressed later in this document. The Mississippi State Capitol is also notable for its exceptionally large, fine, and diverse array of architectural glass, executed by the firm of noted Chicago artisan and designer Louis J. Millet, who collaborated with Louis Sullivan in several of his most noted buildings. Millet’s work is also addressed later in this document.
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______Narrative Statement of Significance (Provide at least one paragraph for each area of significance.)
Architectural Context: Beaux Arts Classicism, the Neoclassical Revival, and the American Renaissance The thirty-five years from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until the end of the nineteenth century were a period of great architectural change and experimentation in the United States. The architecture of those years reflected a wide diversity of styles, and it was not uncommon to see features from several different styles combined on the same building. Many of the major public buildings erected during this period, including several state capitols, were built in non-classical styles. The Connecticut state capitol, designed by Richard M. Upjohn and built from 1872 to 1879, was an elaborate display of High Victorian Gothic.41 Louisiana’s Gothic Revival state capitol, completed in 1849, had burned during the Civil War, but it was rebuilt within its ruined walls in 1880-82 under the direction of William A. Freret in an even more imaginative expression of the Gothic style.42 The New York state capitol, begun by Thomas W. Fuller in 1868 but largely built in the 1880s under the under the direction of Leopold Eidlitz and H.H. Richardson, has a distinctly French Renaissance or Chateauesque character on the exterior, while the interior has Gothic and Romanesque styling.43 Although the popularity of classically-inspired architecture waned during this period, it never completely fell out of fashion, particularly for major public buildings; but the classically-inspired public buildings that were built from the 1870s through the early 1890s largely exhibited an approach to classical design that was heavily influenced by the High Victorian Italianate, French Second Empire, and French Renaissance styles. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale, in Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A., refer to the state capitols of the period from 1866 to 1890 as “Gilded Age” capitols.44 Alan Gowans, in Styles and Types of North American Architecture, characterizes these buildings as examples of “Picturesque Classicism.”45 These capitol buildings tended to have highly articulated exteriors with a distinct vertical emphasis, and their features, particularly windows and columns, were often vertically elongated. Those characteristics are expressed in the capitols of Kansas (1866-1903), Illinois (1868-88), Iowa (1871-86), Michigan (1872-78), Indiana (1878-88), Texas (1882-88) (NHL, 1986), Colorado (1886-1908), and Wyoming (1887-88 and 1889-90, enlarged 1915-1917) (NHL, 1987). 46 It was during this late Victorian period that the custom of placing large, prominent central domes on state capital buildings became well established. This architectural motif had been used in the design of numerous state capitols before the Civil War, including the (Old) Capitol of Mississippi (1836-40), but these buildings tended to have relatively low domes, set upon short drums, apparently following the example of the United States Capitol as it had been completed by Charles Bullfinch in about 1826.47 (There were some exceptions to this general pattern; several antebellum capitols, most notably the Vermont capitol as rebuilt in 1857-59, 48 had domes set upon higher drums, but lower domes were more typical during that period.) It was the completion of the new dome of the U.S. Capitol
41 Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale, Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), pp. 162-166. 42 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, pp. 194-196. 43 Susan W. Thrane and Tom Patterson, State Houses: America’s 50 State Capitol Buildings (Erin, Ontario, Canada: Boston Mills Press, 2005), pp. 120-125, and Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, p. 165. 44 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, pp. 166-167, 187, 198-200. 45 Alan Gowans, Styles and Types of North American Architecture: Social Function and Cultural Expression (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 87. Gowans pictures the Colorado State Capitol as an example of Picturesque Classicism, and contrasts it with the Missouri State Capitol as an example of the later academic Classicism, which he refers to in this instance as “the majestic, learned early-twentieth-century Academic Roman Revival Style.” 46 The design and construction of these capitols is Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, pp. 126-129. 47 The U.S. Capitol, as it as it appeared in 1847, is pictured in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, p. 121. Hitchcock and Seale, however, assert, on p. 123, that “No state had seen fit to copy the Capitol.” 48 Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, pp. 54-55; Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, pp. 126-129.
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(completed on the exterior in 1863 and completed inside in 1866) 49 that established the precedent, and to a great extent the model, for the large, monumental domes topping the great majority of the state capitols that were built from the late 1860s through the 1920s. The new dome of the U.S. Capitol, designed by Thomas U. Walter, was built of cast iron, and was inspired, in part, by the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and the dome of the Panthéon in Paris.50 Apparently inspired by the U.S. Capitol dome, a new dome was added to the New Hampshire capitol in 1863-66, 51 and a dome much more like that of the U.S. Capitol was designed about 1866 for the (old) Wisconsin capitol (no longer extant).52 The California capitol (completed in 1878)53 also had a similar dome. The presence of large, monumental domes gives many of the state capitols built between the 1860s and the 1920s a certain similarity of form,54 but the architectural character of the individual buildings varies greatly. By the 1890s, under the leadership of architects who had been educated at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, American architects had begun to embrace a new approach to the design of public buildings that was more rigorous and disciplined in its composition and more erudite and deliberate in its interpretation and application of the vocabulary of classical design. A similar movement was also occurring in the fine arts. Broadly, these developments are referred to as the “American Renaissance.” 55 This new “academic” approach to classically-inspired architecture was expressed in several different stylistic modes. Marcus Whiffen, in American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles, categorized these modes of Classicism as four specific styles: “Beaux Arts Classicism,” the “Neo- Classical Revival,” the “Second Renaissance Revival,” and the “Georgian Revival.” 56 Beaux Arts Classicism tended to look toward the architecture of the Baroque era and particularly the French architecture of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The Neo-Classical Revival (or Neoclassical Revival) was more inspired by the French Neoclassical architecture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and often employed ancient Greek orders instead of ancient Roman or Renaissance orders. The Second Renaissance Revival, as termed by Whiffen, looked more toward the Italian Renaissance for its inspiration and vocabulary. The Georgian Revival drew inspiration from the architecture of the late Stuart and early Georgian eras in England and from the architecture of the late Colonial and early Federal periods in North America. Distinctions between these four stylistic modes are sometimes rather arbitrary. They employed a similar vocabulary and drew from similar Classical traditions. It is not unusual to see characteristics of two or more of these stylistic modes in the same building. This is particularly true of Beaux Arts Classicism and the Neoclassical Revival, which can be seen as polarities of a single spectrum, with Baroque complexity at one end and restrained or austere Neoclassicism at the other. Initially, this new approach to monumental public architecture was largely confined to the major cities of the Northeast, particularly New York City, which was the epicenter of American Beaux Arts Classicism.57 Among the leading architects in this development was the firm of McKim, Mead and White. The first state capitol to express this new approach to Classical architecture was the Rhode Island State House, designed by McKim, Mead and White and built from 1892 to 1904. 58
49 Henry Hope Reed, The United States Capitol: Its Architecture and Decoration (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005), p. 31; and William C. Allen, History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics (Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press of the Pacific, 2005), pp. 324-327, and 340. 50 Allen, History of the United States Capitol, pp. 225-226; Reed, The United States Capitol: Its Architecture and Decoration, pp. 15-18. 51 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, p. 148. 52 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, p. 148. 53 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, pp. 148; pictured on p. 147. 54 As noted, for example, in James Jacobs, “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks,” (U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. February 2009), p. 4. The Statehouse as and architectural type, and particularly the form characterized as a “domed, low cross” is addressed in Chapter 2 of Charles T. Goodsell, The American Statehouse: Interpreting Democracy’s Temples (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2001). 55 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, pp. 210-212. 56 Marcus Whiffen, American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), pp. 149- 171. 57 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, pp. 210-212. 58 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, p. 148.
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Popular appreciation for the architecture and urban planning of the American Renaissance was greatly stimulated by a series of World’s Fairs held in various American cities in the 1890s and early 1900s, most notably the World’s Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893. The significance of the World’s Columbian Exposition was summed up by Hitchcock and Seale: The producers of Chicago’s great show changed the history of American Architecture, extending, if only nominally, the professional climate of New York and Chicago to the whole of America. In turn the fair sold the public on Beautiful Architecture, with the corollary that real beauty could only be created by established professionals. The Chicago exposition also proved that a city could be clean and safe and lovely. Americans willingly accepted the idea that architecture would lead them into the Age of the City Beautiful. Over and over again, in the remotest places, mayors and businessmen pored over pictures of the White City and imagined what their own towns might become. 59 During the decade following the World’s Columbian Exposition, the architecture of the American Renaissance became increasingly popular throughout the United States. Of the several styles encompassed by the movement, the Neoclassical Revival came to be the most widely-adopted style for public buildings throughout the United States, although many fine examples of the other styles were built as well. The largest and finest of these buildings, particularly state capitol buildings, demanded skills in design, engineering, and project management that were beyond the capabilities of most small, local architectural firms of that time; so larger and more experienced firms, with regional or national reputations and résumés, usually based in the larger cities of the Northeast or the Midwest were often called upon for these large-scale projects. Two very important factors enabled the construction of large, complex public buildings in the 1890s and early 1900s. One factor was the rapid and efficient transportation of people and materials that was made possible by the development of the vast American railroad network. This transportation system allowed the shipment of such materials as structural steel, factory-produced furniture and building supplies, and distinct varieties of marble and other building stones to any city in the United States; and it also made it practical for architects, building contractors, and skilled artisans to travel easily from area of the country to another. The other factor enabling the construction of these buildings was the cumulative effect of many significant advances in building technology, including structural steel framing, electric lighting, and steam heating systems. Without these technological advances, such large, complex, and ornate buildings could not be feasible. The second of the American Renaissance state capitols to be designed, and the first to be started after the World’s Columbian Exposition, was the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul. Begun in 1896 and completed in 1905, it was designed by Cass Gilbert. Like the Rhode Island State House, the Minnesota capitol was a highly refined example of academic Classicism in the Beaux Arts tradition. Other capitols begun during the next few years included the capitols of Montana (1896-1902; enlarged 1909-12), Arkansas (1899-1915), Pennsylvania (1902-06), Idaho (1905- 20), Kentucky (1905-09), South Dakota (1907-10), Wisconsin (1906-17). Among the earliest and finest of the American Renaissance capitol buildings built during this period was the Mississippi State Capitol, begun in 1901 and completed in 1903.
Historical Background: Jackson as the State Capital When the Mississippi Territory was created in 1798, its largest settlement and administrative center was Natchez. In 1800, the capital of the territory was relocated to Washington, a small community about six miles outside of Natchez. Over the next few years, the boundaries of the Mississippi Territory were expanded several times, so that it eventually consisted of all of the area now contained within the states of Mississippi and Alabama, but the capital remained at Washington, in the far southwest corner of that vast area. In 1817, the western half of that area became the State of Mississippi, and the eastern half became the Alabama Territory. When Mississippi became a state, much of its land area, particularly in the central and northern parts of the state, were under the control of the Choctaw and
59 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, p. 215.
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Chickasaw Indians. In 1820, in the Treaty of Doak’s Stand, the Choctaws ceded a large area in the west-central part of the state to the federal government, and it was soon opened up for settlement. 60 The government of the new state met at Natchez from 1817 to 1821. In 1821, the Legislature voted to relocate temporarily to Columbia, but also created a three-man commission to find a suitable location for a permanent capital near the center of the state, in the area recently ceded by the Choctaws. The commission selected a site and recommended it to the Legislature. In 1822, the Legislature, meeting at Columbia, approved the recommended location and ordered that a town be laid out there, to be named Jackson in honor of General Andrew Jackson. A plat was drawn up and was accepted by the Legislature in June 1822. Within the next several months the new town was being developed and a temporary brick capitol building had been erected, where the Legislature convened on December 22, 1822. The officials of the state government had already relocated to Jackson by that time. 61 The temporary brick state house, which was located at the northeast corner of Capitol Street and President Street, was used for the next seventeen years.
Historical Background: The Old Capitol In 1833, the Mississippi Legislature authorized funding “for the erection of a State House and suitable offices for the secretary of state, state treasurer, auditor of public accounts, and attorney general, therein.” 62 The construction of a capitol building, with a Gothic architectural character, was begun in 1834 under the direction of architect John Lawrence. This work was found to be unsatisfactory, however, and in 1835 the decision was made to dismiss Lawrence and hire a new architect to begin the project afresh with a new design. Lawrence was replaced by William Nichols, who had been the architect of state capitols in North Carolina and Alabama. 63 Nichols developed a new design in the Greek Revival style. Construction began in 1836. By January of 1839 the building was complete enough for the Legislature to meet there, but work continued through 1839 and 1840. The Capitol was not significantly harmed during the Civil War, but the building suffered from poor and deferred maintenance. It underwent an extensive renovation in 1870-71. Following these renovations, it continued to serve as the State Capitol for another 32 years. Over that period, however, the building suffered increasingly severe problems from insufficient maintenance and from some inherent structural weaknesses in the design.64 By the mid-1890s, the building was in very poor condition, and it was much too small to meet the needs of the state government. In 1896 the Legislature began to consider proposals for erecting a new capitol building. A proposal made in 1897 to erect a new capitol was vetoed by Governor Anselm J. McLauren, but the idea of building a new capitol continued to gain support for the next several years. In 1900, under the leadership of newly-elected Governor Andrew H. Longino, the legislature passed “an act to create a State House Commission, to secure drawings, plans, and specifications for, and to authorize and provide for the building and erection of a State House.” 65 The building that was subsequently erected is the present Mississippi State Capitol. After the completion of the new Capitol in 1903, the Old Capitol was largely abandoned and fell into ruin. It was renovated in 1916-17 to become a state office building, and renovated again in 1959-61 to become the State Historical Museum. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. The Old Capitol suffered serious damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and subsequently underwent an extensive restoration from 2006 to 2009. The building serves today as the Old Capitol Museum, administered by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
60 John Ray Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol: Biography of a Building (Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1990), pp. 5-7. 61 Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol, pp. 7-11; and Robert J. Bailey, History of the Mississippi State Capitol (unpublished draft manuscript prepared for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 2004), p. 2. 62 Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol, pp. 33-45, 49; and Bailey, History of the Mississippi State Capitol (2004 draft), pp. 3-4. 63 Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol, pp. 22-25. 64 Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol, pp. 85-107. 65 Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol, pp. 107-111; and Bailey, History of the Mississippi State Capitol (2004 draft), pp. 9-20.
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The design and construction of the “New” Capitol, 1900-1903 When the Mississippi Legislature passed the authorization for the design and construction of a new capitol, it included a provision allowing the governor to issue bonds for up to one million dollars to fund the project. However, before this could be done, it suddenly became unnecessary. Not long before, the State of Mississippi had filed suit against the Illinois Central Railroad and two of its subsidiaries, the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad and the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad, to claim unpaid taxes in the amount $1,000,000. This lawsuit eventually led to an appeal which was considered by the United States Supreme Court. The case was heard before the court in October 1900, and a decision in favor of the State of Mississippi was issued on January 7, 1901.66 The Legislature subsequently allocated the proceeds from the settlement of the lawsuit to the new capitol project, with the result that there was no need to issue the bonds. Funding for the construction of the new capitol came almost entirely from the settlement of the lawsuit. 67 The site selected for the new capitol building was the four-block area that was occupied at that time by the old State Penitentiary. The Legislature had been intending to close the antiquated prison for some time, and using its site would provide more space than the site of the Old Capitol and would also allow the Old Capitol to remain in use while the New Capitol was being built. The legislation of 1900 created a State House Commission, with Governor Longino as its ex officio president. The commission promptly began its work, holding its first meeting on April 7, 1900. Prior to this meeting, in accordance with the legislation, the Governor had already arranged for advertisements requesting design proposals from interested architects.68 Architects were invited to submit proposals for what was, in effect, an architectural competition to select a project architect. Fourteen architectural firms submitted preliminary proposals: 1. Moad & Bramlet, Dallas, Texas. 2. E.E. Meyers, Detroit, Michigan. 3. J.W. Gaddis, Vincennes, Indiana. 4. Bruce & Morgan, Atlanta, Georgia. 5. Theodore C. Link, St. Louis, Missouri. 6. Weathers & Weathers, Memphis, Tennessee. 7. H. Wolters, Louisville, Kentucky. 8. George R. Mann, Little Rock, Arkansas. 9. James B. Cook, Memphis, Tennessee. 10. Bryan & Gilbert, Atlanta, Georgia. 11. J. Riley Gordon, Dallas, Texas. 12. Alfred Zucker, New York, New York. 13. G.W. Bunting, Indianapolis, Indiana 14. E.O. Murdock & Company, Omaha, Nebraska 69 Faced with the difficult choice of selecting between these proposals, the commission decided to seek professional advice. They hired Bernard R. Green, the superintendent of construction for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., to serve as a consultant. He was asked to examine all the proposals and to make recommendations to the
66 “Yazoo & Mississippi Railroad Company, Pltffs., in Err., v. Wirt Adams,” in The Supreme Court Reporter, vol. 21 (November 1900-July 1901) (St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1901), p. 240 ff. (viewed on-line on Google Books). 67 Bailey, History of the Mississippi State Capitol (2004 draft), p. 21. The cost of the actual construction of the building was paid entirely from the proceeds of the lawsuit, but some additional costs associated with earthmoving and some later costs for furnishings were paid using other state funds. 68 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 4-5 (Official Records Series 637, in the collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History); Bailey, History of the Mississippi State Capitol (2004 draft), pp. 21-22. 69 “Report of the State House Commission to the Legislature of Mississippi, 1902,” published as an appendix to The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi [Volume 1], 1904, p. 654 (available on Google Books). The list is also included in Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 15-17.
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commission. Green met with the commission on June 7, 1900, and began his examination of the plans, which were presented to him with the names of the submitters hidden, the plans being identified only by number, from 1 to 14. He completed his examination of the plans and made his report to the commission on June 11. 70 In his report, Green prefaced his comments about the specific proposed designs with some general observations about the design of capitol buildings: The object and function of a State Capitol are mainly to furnish accommodations of due dignity and convenience for the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of the Government and the building should be so designed as to give architectural prominence and expression to this trinity of objects and functions. To provide a building that shall meet these requirements and be well lighted and aired from the exterior, as it should be, the plan must be on the order of wings and pavilions. These can also be made to emphasize the importance of the several government branches referred to and give them the needed separation from each other for business convenience. Several of the designs submitted follow out this idea more or less distinctly, by means of a symmetrical three- part plan or three-dome motive, while others treat the building as practically a single rectangular house with no expression of its unique significance. Furthermore the simple and more direct design is always the better so long as dignity and elegance of proportion are preserved. A Capitol, of all buildings, should be strikingly massive, grand, noble – typifying the power, honor, stability and superiority of the government over all individual, corporate or other institutions whatsoever in the state. It should, therefore, be at once recognizable, over all other buildings in the neighborhood, as the Capitol – regardless of its mere relative size, which may even be small – and never by any possibility be legitimately mistaken for any other institution whatsoever. Regardless of this principle, however, many State houses are designed to resemble schools, colleges, asylums and even factories and exhibition halls. Some of the designs before us are open to this criticism, having many windows, thin walls, trifling domes or domed towers, pinnacles and rattling unrestful sky lines. The exterior walls of the building should have good thickness and deep window reveals, giving shade and apparent strength, and the porticos and angles should be deep, giving shadow. The dome or domes should be full, well rounded, with quiet outlines and not too high. The rotunda should be ample unobstructed by stairs or columns and of moderate height, that it may be a rotunda in fact, and not a well hole. It should always be available for an assembly room and meeting place for special occasions and the space it occupies thus rendered useful as well as architecturally imposing. To secure such a building within money limits, some minor conveniences may have to be yielded and the capacity of the building somewhat reduced. $2,000,000 worth of space cannot be had in a $1,000,000 building without thin and tawdry construction and treatment, which, although durable and strong enough, will look cheap and be a credit to nobody. Let the proposed New Capitol be designed and constructed along the lines above indicated, and within the dimensions that the available funds will warrant, and the outcome will be creditable to all concerned. 71 Upon Green’s recommendation, the commission selected proposal no. 5, which had been submitted by Theodore C. Link. In his report, Green made recommendations about changes which he believed would improve the design. 72 (These were all subsequently adopted in the final design). He further urged that the architect “should be appointed with the understanding that he shall enter de novo with the commission on the preparation of a complete design,” using the original proposal only as a conceptual model. 73
70 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 17-19; and “Report of the State House Commission to the Legislature of Mississippi, 1902.” 71 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 20-22. 72 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 23-24. 73 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, p. 25.
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Green also offered comments on several of the other proposals, including no. 8, which had been submitted by George R. Mann.74 Mann, formerly from St. Louis, but residing at that time in Little Rock, Arkansas, had recently completed the design of the Arkansas State Capitol, and was involved at that time with the early stages of its construction. Some years later, in 1937, Mann claimed that Link’s final design for the dome of the Mississippi State Capitol had been based on his own original design, but this claim is questionable for several reasons, not the least of which is that Bernard Green had said of Mann’s Mississippi proposal that “the domes are weak and thin in appearance.”75 Link came to Jackson and met with the commission on June 13. The following day, the commission formally accepted his design as a preliminary plan, and officially selected him to be the project architect. 76 His contract was approved on June 30. 77 Link spent the next three months preparing the plans and specifications, though he apparently had finalized the design of the exterior as early as August, when an illustration of the building was published in a Kentucky newspaper.78 The final design had numerous changes from the original proposed design. Some were made upon the specific recommendation of Bernard Green. Others changes were likely made at the request of the Commission, and some changes were made by Link himself as he refined the design. The most evident change, made at the recommendation of Green, was the removal of a tall tower which had been the dominant feature of the original design. Two other changes that were made at Green’s suggestion were the addition of an attic story (now the fourth story) and the inclusion of a porte cochere behind the front entrance steps.79 The center dome was increased in height and placed upon a colonnaded drum, similar to the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The end pavilions were changed by the substitution of recessed porticoes instead of prostyle porticoes, and by the lowering of their domes and the removal of pediments at the base of the domes. These changes to the end pavilions had the effect of reducing their visual prominence and increasing the visual prominence of the center of the building. Link presented his plans and specifications to the commission on October 15. The commission carefully examined the plans and specifications, and approved them the following day, when they also approved the advertisement for bids. 80 The bids for the project were opened on December 10, but all were too high, so the commission asked Link to make some modifications to the plans and requested revised bids from the applicants. 81 Nine contractors submitted revised bids, which were received on December 12. On December 13, the commission accepted the bid of W.A. and A.E. Wells, of Chicago. This firm was an experienced and highly-regarded construction company that had built important steel-frame commercial buildings in Chicago and other Midwestern cities, for such prominent architects as Holabird and Root. (By this time, the senior partner of the firm, W.A. Wells, had died. The firm was reorganized shortly afterwards as the Wells Brothers Company, but the State House Commission insisted that all business with regard to the Mississippi Capitol project be conducted using the name “W.A. and A.E. Wells.” 82) Their contract was approved on December 18, 1900.83
74 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, p. 24. 75 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, p. 24. 76 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 29-30. 77 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 32-33. The actual contract is filed in Mississippi State House Commission, “Commission Files, 1900-1903” (Official Records, Series 634, Mississippi Department of Archives and History). 78 Daily Public Ledger (Maysville, Kentucky), August 21, 1900, from the Chronicling America web site of the Library of Congress, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86069117/1900-08-21/ed-1/seq-3/ A very similar illustration of the Mississippi State Capitol was published in The Cook County Herald (Grand Marais, Minn.), on October 27, 1900. 79 A similar porte cochere is located behind the front steps of the New York State Capitol (begun in 1867 and completed in 1899). 80 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 37-39. 81 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 41-45. The complete specifications are indexed in the minutes on pages 45-49; the drawings are itemized on page 50, the complete specifications are transcribed on pages 51 to 177, and the advertisement for bids is shown on pages 178-179. 82 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, p. 449. 83 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 184-186. The contract is filed in Mississippi State House Commission, “Commission Files, 1900-1903.” (Official Records, Series 634, Mississippi Department of Archives and History).
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The contract became effective as of January 1, 1901, and that date has been cited in some sources as the beginning of construction, but the actual work of construction by the contractors apparently began in March.84 On March 14, 1901, the State House Commission voted to hire J.H. Barnes, a building contractor from Greenville, Mississippi, to be their on-site construction superintendent. Barnes arrived in Jackson and reported for work the next day.85 After some initial delay related to site preparation and excavation for the foundations, construction work proceeded quickly and efficiently. In his monthly reports to the commission, Barnes, himself an experienced building contractor, seems to have been continually impressed by the professionalism and skill of the contractors and subcontractors and their workmen. In 1901, no project of this size, complexity, or technical sophistication had ever been undertaken in Jackson, or even in the entire state of Mississippi. The subcontractors for the construction work were all selected by the contractors and reported to them, so there is little record of them in the commission minutes, but they are all listed in the booklet that was prepared as a record of the rather belated cornerstone-laying ceremony that took place on June 3, 1903.86 The subcontractors were: George Dugan, Bedford, Indiana Cut Stone N.O. Nelson Manufacturing Co., St. Louis Marble and Mosaic American Bridge Co, New York Steel, Iron, and Bronze Columbian Fireproofing Co., Pittsburgh Fireproofing The Northwestern Terra Cotta Company, Chicago Terra Cotta August Zander Co., Chicago Plastering Art Marble Co., Chicago, Scagliola J.C. McFarland & Co., Chicago Roof and Skylights Hoben & Doyle, Philadelphia Plumbing W.P. Nelson Co., Chicago Painting Louis J. Millet, Chicago Art Glass Otis Elevator Co., Chicago Passenger Elevators Mosler Safe Co., Hamilton, Ohio Burglar proof vault Orr & Locket Hardware Co., Chicago Hardware Cassidy & Sons Manufacturing Co., New York Electric Fixtures It is evident that many of these firms were from Chicago, where they had undoubtedly already had experience working with the W.A. and A.E. Wells Company. Not listed among these subcontractors was Robert P. Bringhurst, of St. Louis, the sculptor who designed the tympanum of the portico. He may have been hired directly by Theodore Link.87 Also missing from that list is A.R. Grieve, of St. Louis, the sculptor and metalworker who created the gold-leafed copper eagle that adorns the top of the dome.88
84 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone of Mississippi’s New State House in the City of Jackson on June 3, 1903, the booklet produced to record the proceeding and speeches for the dedication of the building, states, on p. 71, that “Actual work on the building was begun Jan. 1, 1901,” but the “Report of the State House Commission to the Legislature of Mississippi, 1902” uses somewhat more ambiguous wording, saying “The Messrs. Wells began operations under the contract on the 1st day of January, 1901.” A report about the building in the 1908 Official and Statistical Register, however, on p. 213, says “The actual work was commenced on the building in March, 1901 and was completed by the contractors in July, 1903.” 85 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 210 and 212. 86 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, p. 74. 87 The Minutes, pp. 422-424, report that Link had presented the design for the tympanum to the commission on February 7, 1902. 88 The only documentation that has been found thus far specifically identifying A.R. Grieve as the creator of the sculpted eagle is the caption and accession information of a photograph, made in 1903, showing Grieve standing next to the sculpture. The photograph is cataloged as PI/HS/1982.0095 (“Grieve, A.R.”), item no. 1 (though it is the sole item in that folder) in the photograph collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
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There were also several contractors hired directly by the State House Commission to carry out parts of the project other than the construction of the building itself. As listed in the booklet, 89 they were: Frank J. Butler, Greenville and Jackson, Miss. Steam Fitting and Power Plant Frank Adam Electric Co., St. Louis Electric Wiring and Electric Work J. Kennard Sons Co., St. Louis Electric and Gas Light Fixtures General Fireproofing Co., Youngstown, Ohio Metal Stacks for State Library George D. Barnard Co., St. Louis Metal Furniture for State Officers Wollaeger Manufacturing Co., Milwaukee General Wood Furniture and Cabinet Work Charles A. Babst, New Orleans Granitoid pavements Evans & Hamilton, Jackson Grading Board of Control of State Penitentiary, Jackson Grading E.S. Gordon, Jackson Grading Illinois Central Railroad Company (“at no cost to the state”) Railroad Track to New Capitol 90 Construction proceeded remarkably quickly and smoothly for a project of its size and complexity. On April 3, 1902, Barnes reported to the commission that the stonework of the exterior walls was complete except for around the dome, and that was expected to be done within the next month.91 On August 7, 1902, he reported that the brickwork had been completed, the stonework was compete except for carving, the structural steel was complete, the copper roofing was done, and the marble work and plastering in the interior was well underway. 92 On 4 December Barnes reported that “the principal work now being done is the marble and scagliola work which continues with the same degree of excellence and unabated zeal by the contractors.” He added, “The Roman mosaic floor in the Governor’s Reception Hall has been completed and is a magnificent piece of work.” The windows had all been fitted by that time, so that the building was closed to the weather.93 In April 1903 he reported “The stone carving is practically completed, and the eminent sculptor in charge of the tympanum has just been here and approved the work with some slight changes, which have all been done in a satisfactory manner,” 94 The building was largely complete by June 3, 1903, when an elaborate ceremony was held to lay the cornerstone. This ceremony was, in effect, the dedication ceremony for the building. It drew an enormous crowd, despite rainy weather. Among the speakers that day was Governor Andrew H. Longino, who made this observation: I deem it due to say … that by singleness of purpose and untiring vigilance on the part of the commission, who at all times have enjoyed the confidence, co-operation, and friendship of the architect, Mr. Theodore C. Link, of St. Louis, Mo., and the contractors, Mssrs. Wells Bros. Co., of Chicago, Ill., together with the superintendents, sub-contractors, and all others connected with the work, that it has been possible to complete the building within the contract time, within the contract price, without labor disturbances or disagreements of any kind, and without the issuance of a dollar of bonds to be used in payment on the building. 95 The building was not yet complete, however, for some work remained to be done on the interior by the marble and scagliola workers. On August 20, 1903, Barnes reported that the construction work was nearly complete, and that he had examined the building with the Assistant Supervising Architect (Theodore Link’s son Karl Link) and the Contractor’s Superintendent (Theodore H. Schlader), and had prepared a list of the minor items left to be done. He added, “The contractors have exhibited great wisdom in selecting the very best sub-contractors to be found in the
89 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, p. 75. 90 This railroad track was a construction spur that proved indispensable for transporting the vast amount of structural steel, cut stone, and brick used in the project. The spur was laid specifically to provide rail access to the site, and was taken up after the heavy construction work had been completed. 91 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 433-435. 92 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 466-467. 93 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 500-502. 94 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 548-549. 95 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, p. 17.
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country …”96 After receiving Barnes’s report, “the members of the commission, accompanied by the architect and the contractor, proceeded to make a careful inspection of the entire building.” The commission then determined to formally accept the building from the contractor. 97 At a special meeting on September 23, 1903, the commission adopted a resolution to begin the relocation of the state offices and records from the Old Capitol to the new building. The relocation set off a round of squabbling among state officials about space requirements and room assignments, which necessitated some reassignments.98 Surprisingly, the legislative chambers were initially furnished with desks and chairs brought over from the Old Capitol, instead of new furniture.99 In January 1904, some additional “metallic furniture” (filing cabinets) still needed to be purchased, but most of the furnishing of the building was complete.100 On April 7, 1904, the State House Commission held its last meeting, authorizing the final payments on its remaining accounts and transferring the remaining balance of $283.37 to the state treasury.101 The architect and the contractors were justifiably proud of the magnificent building. In 1902, while it was under construction, Theodore Link had entered his design for the Capitol in the Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club, where it was displayed among the finest recent works of his fellow architects in his home city. It is unclear how much of the design was exhibited, but the catalog of the exhibition included a reproduction of the South Elevation drawing of the construction plans.102 The contractors, the Wells Brothers Company, had two full pages in the advertising section of the catalog of that exhibition, including a full-page photograph of the Mississippi Capitol under construction. 103 The completion of the New Capitol was met with great popular acclaim and admiration. One indication of its favorable reception was the degree to which it was emulated by other buildings throughout the state. Although the Capitol was not actually the first expression of American Renaissance Classicism to be built in Mississippi – the first was apparently the Ricks Memorial Library in Yazoo City, begun in 1900 and completed in 1902 – the Capitol was much more prominent and brought academic Classicism to the attention of the public in Mississippi. The impact of the construction of the new Capitol on the architecture of Mississippi was immediate and profound. Almost immediately following its construction – even while it was being built – architectural tastes swiftly changed throughout the state. The Romanesque Revival style, which had been the preferred style for public buildings in Mississippi since the mid-1880s, fell out of fashion virtually overnight. The last Romanesque county courthouse to be constructed, the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, was built in 1902, and in the same year the first true Neoclassical Revival courthouse was constructed. This was the Copiah County Courthouse in Hazlehurst, designed by James Reily Gordon, who had submitted a proposed design for the New Capitol. Nearly every new county courthouse and city hall built in the next twenty years was Classical Revival. Altogether thirty-three Classical Revival courthouses were built in Mississippi between 1902 and 1918, and several substantial municipal buildings. Numerous Classical Revival college buildings and public schools were erected during that same period. Even religious architecture expressed this new fashion for Classical architecture. The first Neoclassical Revival religious building in the state was Temple B’nai Israel in Natchez (1904-05), followed by Hebrew Union Temple in Greenville (1906), Temple Beth Israel in Meridian (1906), and First Baptist Church in Greenwood (1909-10). Between 1910 and 1918, dozens of Neoclassical Revival churches were built throughout Mississippi. How much of this sudden popularity of the Classical Revival for governmental and institutional architecture in Mississippi is attributable directly to the construction of the Capitol, and how much to other influences, is impossible to determine, but it is certainly clear that the construction of the Capitol coincided with an abrupt and substantial change in architectural fashion.
96 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 580-581. 97 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 582-584. 98 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, p. 596. 99 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, p. 596. 100 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, p. 620. 101 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, p. 629. 102 “Mississippi State Capitol, Jackson, Mississippi, Theodore C. Link, Architect,” in the Catalogue of the Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club (1902), p. 66. 103 Catalogue of the Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club (1902), pp. 92-93.
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The New Capitol had admirers in other states as well. Shortly after its completion, the Mississippi State Capitol was the subject of a very favorable article, with photographs, in The Inland Architect and News Record, a monthly architectural journal published in Chicago.104 …[T]he new capitol building of Mississippi, just completed, represent[s] the unusual results of the combined efforts and methods of a commission, an architect and contractors. All may carry their heads in pleasant dignity, for without smirch, wire-pulling or jobbery of any kind, the construction of this beautiful building has been carried to a successful completion, finished within contract time without extras and within the estimated sum of the accepted contract; and hence it stands in its massive dignity an example of conscientious business methods that might well be followed by many who have public improvements in their charge, This capitol building at Jackson, Mississippi, emphasizes the advent of prosperity and modern progress in the South, and its educational mission will be far-reaching in its salutary effects upon future public buildings throughout the Southern States. 105 The article continues with detailed descriptions of the building and the process of its construction, and praises the work of the Wells Brothers Company, the Northwestern Terra Cotta Company, stonework contractor George Dugan, and the architect, Theodore C. Link. It concludes, “In this capitol building there is much that is worthy of critical study and deserving of a profound admiration.” 106 The Mississippi Capitol was regarded as a model by the capitol-building commissions of other states. When it was nearing completion, in May 1903, the building was visited by the Arkansas Capitol Commission in order to “obtain all the information that in their judgment would be of value in the prosecution of our work.”107 In 1905, a delegation from Idaho’s capitol building commission, on a tour to examine the capitols of some other states, came to Jackson to see the new Mississippi Capitol. According to a report in The Idaho Daily Statesman, they were very impressed with the building. 108 The members of the commission agree that the Mississippi Capitol building is more nearly such a one as is contemplated here and would require less changes to answer for Idaho’s needs than any other single building inspected. The architectural effect is good, the interior arrangement could scarcely be improved upon, with the changes rendered necessary by the different offices to be accommodated, and there were no serious defects that were discovered in the short visit made.109
Further Development of the Capitol and its grounds, 1904-c.1935 The State House Commission, which oversaw the construction of the Capitol, had arranged for extensive grading to be done on the grounds, and for the construction of drives surfaced with “granitoid pavements.” Over the next few years, the grounds were developed as a tree-shaded public park. Eventually several commemorative monuments were placed on the grounds. The first of the commemorative monuments on the Capitol grounds was the prow ornament, or figurehead, of the battleship U.S.S Mississippi (BB-23), which was launched in 1905. The figurehead had been removed under an order by Secretary of the Navy George Mayer in 1909 directing the removal of the ornamental figureheads from U.S. Navy ships. In December 1909, at the request of Gov. Edmond Noel, the prow ornament of the Mississippi was
104 E.C. Clark, “Mississippi State Capitol,” The Inland Architect and News Record, 42:3 (October 1903), pp. 22-23, with a photograph on p. 23 and six other photographs on accompanying plates. 105 Clark, “Mississippi State Capitol,” The Inland Architect, p. 22. 106 Clark, “Mississippi State Capitol,” The Inland Architect, pp. 22-23. 107 Blake Wintory, “A Tale of Two Domes: Mississippi and Arkansas” (Part I), Preservation in Mississippi, August 22, 2011, http://misspreservation.com/2011/08/22/architectural-twins-mississippi-and-arkansas-state-capitol-domes/. 108 “About the History of Idaho’s Capitol,” a brochure published by the Idaho Capitol Commission, viewed on-line on October 7, 2013 (www.capitolcommission.idaho.gov/.../idaho_capitol_history_brochure ). 109 “About the History of Idaho’s Capitol.” The direct quotation is from "Saw Six Capitols in Six States," The Idaho Daily Statesman, Thursday, 8 June 1905, p. 5.
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shipped to Jackson to be placed on public display at the state capitol. About six months after its arrival it was put on exhibit on a temporary stand. In 1914 the prow ornament was permanently mounted on a concrete base on the north side of the Capitol grounds, where it remains today.110 (The prow ornament of the U.S.S. Maine is similarly displayed in Bangor, Maine.) The most prominent monument on the Capitol grounds is the Monument to the Women of the Confederacy, which is located directly south of the front steps of the Capitol. Its cornerstone was set in 1912, but the monument was not completed for several years. The bronze sculpture, designed by Belle Kinney and cast by Tiffany Studios, was finished in 1917.111 As was the custom for state capitol buildings at the time, the Mississippi State Capitol building had been designed to accommodate not only the two houses of the Legislature, the Supreme Court, and the office of the Governor, but also the offices of the various administrative officials of the state, including the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the State Auditor, the State Treasurer, the Adjutant General, and others. However, a substantial growth in the functions of state government was occurring at this time under the influence of the Progressive Movement, and this was reflected in an increasing number of state officials and employees. Within a very short time, the Capitol was fully occupied and was beginning to become crowded. As records storage requirements and the numbers of employees of the various agencies increased, the need for additional office space became urgent. Some agencies found it necessary to rent commercial office space.112 As an article in the Vicksburg Evening Post observed in 1910: The new capitol is too small. That may sound like a pipe dream, but it is, nevertheless, as the various departments have’nt [sic] sufficient room to store their records, and it begins to look as though the Railroad Commission and one or two others would have to seek new quarters in the near future. The executive offices are badly crowded. There is no place to store records and state documents, such as must be kept, and there are millions of them to keep, too. Every inch of available space is utilized to care for these things, but still it is impossible to store them to advantage. The Railroad Commission has a room about large enough for a young attorney starting out in business, and has a mass of records that must be retained, regardless of convenience. The commission is about as badly crowded as four in a bed on a hot summer’s night, and something must be done to relieve the situation soon. It will not be necessary for the Railroad Commission to remain at the capitol. This is one department that could occupy quarters out in the city in order to make more room for the other officers of the state, but no provision has been made for it, nor will be for at least two years. The Attorney General is occupying the room set aside for the lieutenant governor, which relieved the congestion in his departments, but when the legislature meets in 1911 other arrangements will have to be made. The Secretary of State is also crowded more or less, as is the Adjutant General and one of two other state officers, and it is just possible the next legislature will be asked for an appropriation to secure additional quarters for some of the officers. With the development of the state, the business of the commonwealth is outgrowing the capitol. Few persons can realize this, but it is a fact that is brought out strongly every day in a hundred different ways to the state officers. There is no way to make an addition to the capitol, which means the Railroad Commissions, probably the Adjutant General, Land Commissioner, Insurance Commission and one or two other officers will be provided with other quarters in a few years.
110 Subject file, “Mississippi, U.S.S. (2nd) (1905),” Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 111 Subject file, “Monument to the Women of the Confederacy,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History; and Historic Resources Inventory File, “Monument to the Women of the Confederacy” (049-JAC-0001.1), Historic Preservation Division, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 112 Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol, p. 122.
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Each year conditions become more congested, and within the next two years it is believed some measure of relief will have to be determined by the legislature. 113 The first major initiative to create additional space for government offices was the renovation of the Old Capitol in 1916-17, to convert it to a state office building. This was done under the direction of architect Theodore C. Link, who had so greatly impressed the officials of the state by his work on the New Capitol that he was asked to plan and carry out the renovation of the Old Capitol. Soon after the completion of the renovation, the Department of Agriculture, the Board of Health, the Department of Education, and several other agencies relocated to the Old Capitol, while the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Auditor, and the Treasurer remained in the New Capitol.114 The Department of Archives and History also remained in the New Capitol until the completion of the War Memorial Building, adjacent to the Old Capitol, in 1941.115 From 1920 to 1923, some work was done at the Mississippi State Capitol under the auspices of the State Bond Improvement Commission. The supervising architect for the Bond Improvement Commission was none other than Theodore C. Link, who had designed the Capitol and directed its construction twenty years before. The State Bond Improvement Commission was charged with a wide range of public works projects throughout Mississippi, including improvements to the facilities of state colleges, hospitals, and other institutions. Work on the New Capitol consisted of “painting, overhauling the heating system, repairs to plumbing, replacing the tile floor on the North Terrace, and miscellaneous minor repairs,” as well as the installation of an electric power converter.116 Among the “miscellaneous minor repairs” was the installation of two eighty-foot flagpoles in front of the Capitol in 1922.117 These two flagstaffs are the only readily visible features remaining from the work at the Capitol done by the State Bond Improvement Commission, and they are the only surviving features associated with Theodore C. Link’s second period of involvement with the building. In 1925, two German field howitzers, which had been captured during World War I, were placed on display in front of the Capitol. 118 In 1930, during the administration of Governor Theodore Bilbo, some renovation work was done in the Governor’s office suite under the direction of architect Vinson B. Smith, Jr. of Gulfport. It was at that time that the plaster ceilings in the Governor’s Office were reworked, adding two semicircular tympanums adorned with heraldic griffins. These features remain in place today.119 Extensive decorative painting was done in the Capitol in 1934-35 under the auspices of the Civil Works Administration, as project #B4-50. This work included the creation of the four circular paintings of stylized historical subjects located within the drum of the dome, on the panels positioned above the paired columns in the four corners of the rotunda. 120
113 “New Capitol Crowded, AG Camps in Lt. Gov’s Office,” Vicksburg Evening Post, July 8, 1910, p.6, quoted in Preservation in Mississippi, April 24, 2013, http://misspreservation.com/2013/04/24/new-capitol-crowded-out-early/. 114 Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol, p. 134. 115 Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol, pp. 134-135. 116 Wilbur Trueblood, Acting Supervising Architect, “Report of the Supervising Architect” (December 31, 1923), in Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission, Final Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission (1924), Official Records Series 669, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 117 State Bond Improvement Commission, “Building Project Files and Correspondence, 1919-1924,” Official Records Series 666, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 118 Biennial Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Mississippi for the Years 1924-1925, pp. 57-58 and p. 68. 119 “New Offices To Afford Privacy.” Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi), October 15, 1930; Bailey, History of the Mississippi State Capitol (unpublished draft manuscript), p. 61; “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), p. 12; and Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Historic Preservation Division. Historic Resources Inventory Database. Artisan files. 120 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), pp. 3, 7-8; and Bailey, History of the Mississippi State Capitol (unpublished draft manuscript), pp. 61-62. There are several photographs, dated December 26, 1934, showing scaffolding for this work in place in the Rotunda. These photographs are cataloged as PI/STR/C36 (the “Capitols” collection), items no. 333 through 339, in the photograph collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
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The Capitol since 1935 Although the relocation of several state agencies to the Old Capitol in 1917 alleviated some of the crowded conditions temporarily, the office areas of the New Capitol soon became crowded again. The Department of Archives and History moved to the War Memorial Building in 1941, and the completion of the Woolfolk State Office Building in 1950 created more office space, but offices in the Capitol continued to be crowded. During the 1950s and 1960s, various superficial modifications were made to the interior of the Mississippi Capitol, mostly in an effort to more fully utilize office space within the building.121 By the 1970s, the building was showing its age. The original steam heating system was still in use, and the electrical and telephone systems were woefully inadequate. The office areas were congested mazes of temporary partitions and dropped ceilings. These areas were largely out of public sight, however, for the Rotunda, the corridors, and the Legislative chambers still retained their historic appearance. In 1972, two new state office buildings were completed, the Carroll Gartin Justice Building and the Walter Sillers Building, both located across High Street from the Capitol. The Supreme Court and the Attorney General’s Office relocated to the Gartin Building immediately after its completion. Later, in 1976, the working offices of the governor and his staff were moved to the top floor of the Sillers Building. A study was commissioned by the Legislature in 1972 to examine the condition of the Capitol and to make recommendations for repairs and renovations. After several years, a thorough renovation of the Capitol was initiated in 1977. The project, which was to include renovation of the office areas and restoration of the major historic interiors, was planned and carried out by a consortium of firms, bringing together architects, engineers, landscape architects, and interior designers. William Seale, a respected architectural historian and co-author of Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A., served as a consultant to the project. The former Central High School building, located across West Street, southwest of the Capitol, was acquired by the state to serve as a temporary meeting place for the legislature while the work was being done on the Capitol building. Work on the project began in July 1979, and was completed in 1982. The building was rededicated on June 3, 1983, eighty years after the original dedication ceremony.122 A ceremony observing the one-hundredth anniversary of the dedication of the Capitol was held on June 3, 2003. The building serves today as Capitol of the state, housing the legislative chambers, offices, and conference rooms for the Mississippi State Legislature and offices for the legislative support staff. The offices formerly used by various governmental agencies and the rooms originally used for the Supreme Court and the State Library are now used as legislative offices and meeting rooms. Although the Governor and gubernatorial staff have their working offices elsewhere, the Governor’s Office in the Capitol is used on special occasions. The building is open regularly to the public for tours.
Assessing the architectural significance of a state capitol building within a national context In February 2009, the National Landmarks Survey of the National Park Service issued a paper, “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks: A National Historic landmark Special Study,” by James Jacobs, which examines some of the issues involved in assessing a state capitol building for national significance. The paper begins with a recognition of the prominence of state capitol buildings: Capitols are among the most prominent building types found across the United States. The architectural succession of a state’s capitols can be a telling narrative of its settlement, wealth, geographic location, aspirations, and regional of national standing. The great majority of current state capitols were either constructed or were subject to major additions and renovations during the
121 Mississippi State Building Commission (later Mississippi Bureau of Building, Grounds, and Real Property Management), “Contract Files. 1952-1963,” Official Records Series 1542, and “Project Files. 1942-1971,” Official Records Series 1646, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 122 Robert J. Bailey, History of the Mississippi State Capitol (unpublished draft manuscript prepared for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 2004).
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period between the Civil War and World War I. Rising industrial and agricultural wealth, large increases in population, well-honed feelings of civic pride and competition, new building technologies and transportation systems allowing for the movement of structural and finish materials, and professionalism in the field of architecture all converged in these decades, resulting in some of the nation’s finest public buildings. …123 It would appear from this introduction that what followed would explore this theme in greater detail, and explore why these buildings might be significant, but instead, the paper shifts its theme to address some early designations of capitols as National Historic landmarks for their historical associations. Later, this very brief paper returns to the theme of architectural significance: Because they are generally among the highest profile buildings in a capital city or, at times, an entire state, and often designed by noted architects or firms, arguing the national significance of capitols based on architecture has at times been relatively straightforward. Still, the practical and symbolic functions of these buildings, and the long and often labyrinthine construction histories, make demonstrating national significance and accurately documenting physical integrity a daunting process. 124 After a summary of the architectural character of some of the older state capitol buildings, the paper addresses the subject of the post-Civil War state capitol buildings distinguished by the presence of a prominent dome: Between the Civil War and World War I, more than a score of new capitols having prominent domes were completed, and many existing capitols were significantly modified with new wings, larger domes, and extensive remodeling. Without exception, these capitols embody Beaux-Arts planning principles and nearly all are representative of a strain of monumental classicism known most inclusively as American Renaissance. The superficial similarity between this generation of capitols is striking, and underscores both the obvious influence of the U.S. Capitol building, as well as the speed with which the form of a dominant dome became strongly symbolic of democracy in the United States. 125 Having isolated “domed, Beaux-Arts capitols of the American Renaissance” as a distinctive category, the “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks” paper then mentions the four representatives of that group that have received NHL designation – the capitols of Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The paper then addresses the issue of inclusion of capitols in published histories of American architecture. After listing some earlier buildings, the paper notes the lack of attention given to building s of the American Renaissance era: “Intriguingly, except for the U.S. Capitol itself, the domed, Beaux-Arts state capitols have been largely ignored in most general architectural histories of the United States, undoubtedly in part because of their physical similarity.” 126 However, despite having recognized the scarcity of published studies to provide a well established context for assessing architectural significance, the paper then proceeds to mention several state capitols “that might be significant based on architecture alone.” The paper implies that the biggest challenge confronting a researcher examining the architectural significance of a state capitol building from the American Renaissance era is the scarcity of historical studies addressing public architecture in general and state capitols in particular during that period, thus making it difficult to create a broad national context for interpreting the significance of any particular building. Despite the vast number of books that have been published about American architecture, very few recognized scholarly works have examined state capitols within an architectural context. The only well known work that specifically addresses the architectural history of state capitol buildings is Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A., by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale, which was published in 1976. Charles T. Goodsell’s The American Statehouse: Interpreting
123 James Jacobs, “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks,” (U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. February 2009), p. 2. 124 “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks,” p. 3. 125 “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks,” p. 4. 126 “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks,” p. 4.
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Democracy’s Temples, published in 2001, takes a more analytical and thematic approach to capitol buildings, rather than historical. A more recent book, State Houses: America’s 50 State Capitol Buildings (2005), by Susan W. Thrane and Tom Patterson, is mainly a collection of fine color photographs with some historical and descriptive information provided about each building. Broad architectural histories seldom address state capitol buildings, and when they do, it is usually in a brief and cursory manner. The widely-used standard reference on architectural styles, American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles, by Marcus Whiffen, does not cite a single state capitol building as an example of any of the American Renaissance styles. Walter C. Kidney, in his concise but insightful study of the American Renaissance era, The Architecture of Choice: Eclecticism in America, 1880-1930, briefly cites the capitols of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania, before mentioning the later and more unusual Nebraska, Oregon, and North Dakota capitols. What is required, then , to make a case for national significance for a state capitol of the American Renaissance era is for the researcher to become sufficiently well acquainted with the cultural and architectural history of the era to be able not only to interpret a particular building within its broader architectural and historical context, but also to show that the building makes a significant and singular statement about that context. In order to be nationally “significant,” a historic building must “signify” a meaningful aspect of American history. It a sense, it must “tell a story” that substantially enriches or elucidates a broader national historical narrative. A careful consideration of the architectural character and history of the Mississippi State Capitol within the context of the architecture of the United States from the 1890s through the 1910s reveals that the building does, indeed, make a significant and singular statement about academic Classicism at the turn of the twentieth century.
The architectural significance of the Mississippi State Capitol The Mississippi State Capitol building is an exceptionally well designed, well executed, and well preserved example of American Renaissance architecture, combining an exceptionally fine Neoclassical Revival exterior with an interior that in its organization, spatial arrangements, materials, and finishes beautifully expresses the ideals of Beaux Arts Classicism. It is notable not only for the quality of its design and workmanship, but also for the degree to which it expresses a single, coherent architectural expression, designed by a single architect and constructed entirely within a single three-year program of construction, having been completed before any of the other American Renaissance capitols. Moreover, it retains a remarkably high degree of integrity from its period of construction in all respects: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. But what is most significant about this magnificent building is that it is a clear and powerful statement that American Renaissance Classicism was a national movement – indeed, THE national “style” of architecture for American public buildings at the beginning of the twentieth century – and not simply a regional phenomenon limited to the urban centers of the Northeast. American Renaissance Classicism did not capture the national imagination because a few fine examples were built in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia, but, to a great extent, because it was expressed nationally and internationally in a highly visible and widely accessible manner at several enormously popular world's fairs, most notably the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha in 1898, and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904. It was in these places that American Renaissance Classicism was embraced by the American public as the national style for monumental architecture. In an age of eclecticism, when many diverse styles were all in vogue at the same time, American Renaissance Classicism was, without question the dominant architectural style for public and institutional buildings – for capitols, courthouses, post offices, city halls, museums, libraries, public auditoriums, military memorials, college buildings, public schools, railroad stations, banks, and even many churches and synagogues – throughout the United States; and its most prominent and most complete expressions were the state capitols of that period. It is this adoption of American Renaissance Classicism outside of the urban centers of the Northeast, under the influence of the world's fairs that the Mississippi State Capitol expresses most vividly. At the time the Mississippi State Capitol was built, Mississippi was a poor state, its economy still dependent to a large degree on the production of cotton, though forestry had also become very important. It was a very rural state, with only a few small cities. The largest and most important were Vicksburg, with a population of 14,834 in 1900, and Meridian, with population of 14,050 in that year. Jackson, the capital city, was scarcely half their size, with a
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population in 1900 of only 7,816. One advantage Jackson did have was transportation. Jackson was one of Mississippi’s railroad hubs, and because of the nation’s broad and growing network of railroads, Jackson was linked by rail to other cities throughout the United States. Of particular importance to Jackson was the Illinois Central Railroad, for the city was located on its main north-south line between Chicago and New Orleans. It is precisely because this magnificent building was built in what was then a very small capital city in an economically-challenged state in the Deep South, less than 40 years after it was economically, socially, and physically devastated by the Civil War, that the Mississippi State Capitol is nationally significant. Because it was built where it was built (in small, remote, and provincial Jackson, Mississippi), when it was built (1901-03), by whom it was built (a very prominent St. Louis architect and a leading Chicago construction company, using art glass from Chicago, structural steel from New York, limestone shipped by rail from Indiana, and marble from many sources), it makes a singular statement about both the monumental architecture of the United States between the 1890s and the 1910s and the historical context in which it was built. Although not one of the pioneering works of academic Classicism from the 1890s, the Mississippi State Capitol was nonetheless squarely in the forefront of the movement. The construction of Mississippi Capitol predated the completion of many of the most notable examples of academic Classical Revival architecture in the United States, including the New York Public Library (1902-11), Grand Central Station (1903-13), Madison Square Presbyterian Church (1906), and Pennsylvania Station (1906-10) in New York City; Roosevelt Hall of the National War College (1903-07), Union Station (1903-08), the National Museum of Natural History (1904-11), the Cannon House Office Building (1905-08), the Russell Senate Office Building (1905-08), the Lincoln Memorial (1912-22), and the U.S. Supreme Court Building (1929-35) in Washington, D.C.; City Hall in San Franciso (1912-15); and the major Neoclassical works of John Russell Pope. The building also predated the construction of other landmark examples of academic Classical architecture in the Deep South, including former U.S. Post Office and Custom House (now City Hall) (1905-08) in Biloxi; the Louisiana Supreme Court Building (1907-09) and the Old Post Office (1914) in New Orleans; and the Shelby County Courthouse in Memphis (1909). A particularly notable aspect of the Mississippi State Capitol is its exceptionally fine and diverse array of architectural glass, made by the firm of noted Chicago artisan and designer Louis J. Millet. A comprehensive study of the work of Millet and his associates has not yet been done, so the glasswork of the Mississippi Capitol cannot yet be assessed within a sufficiently well developed context, but it is noteworthy that the building contains important examples of the artistry of Millet and his firm.
Comparison with other state capitols from the 1890s through the 1910s Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale, in Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A., their important and often-cited study of the history of America’s state capitols, separate the classically-inspired capitol buildings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries into two groups: those that were largely built before 1890, which they refer to as the “Gilded Age” capitols, and those that were built from the 1890s through the 1920s, which they characterize as “Monuments of the American Renaissance.” As discussed earlier in this document, the “Gilded Age” capitols were generally characterized by composition and detailing influenced by the High Victorian Italianate, French Second Empire, and French Renaissance styles, and they tended to have a distinct vertical emphasis, often expressed by tall, slender windows, attenuated columns, and domes raised upon tall, proportionally slender drums, which in several instances were multi-tiered. Included in this group are the capitols of Kansas (1866- 1903), Illinois (1868-88), Iowa (1871-86), Michigan (1872-78), Indiana (1878-88), Texas (1882-88) (NHL, 1986), Colorado (1886-1908), and Wyoming (1887-88 and 1889-90, enlarged 1915-1917) (NHL, 1987).127 Hitchcock and Seale also include the Georgia capitol (1884-89) (NHL, 1973) in this group, despite the more academically Classical character of its exterior: “… In the context of its counterparts in other states, Atlanta’s statehouse was advanced in design in a certain superficial sense. Its exterior showed a definite tendency toward the academic Classicism still to come. The interior, however, was drab and utilitarian except for the galleried light-courts.”128
127 The design and construction of these capitols is Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, pp. 126-129. 128 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, pp. 168-175.
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The “American Renaissance” capitol buildings, built from the 1890s through the 1920s, are characterized by a much more “correct” academic Classicism. The composition of these buildings shows a strong Beaux Arts approach to design, but their detailing tends to be more expressive of the restrained and austere classicism of the Neoclassical Revival than of the more elaborate and ornamental Beaux Arts “style.” The academic Classicism of the American Renaissance first appeared in the urban centers of the Northeast. The first state capitol to express this new approach to Classical architecture was the Rhode Island State House (1892-1904). Designed by McKim, Mead & White, one of the most prestigious and respected architectural firms in the country at that time, this building was very highly regarded and influential, serving as an exemplar for many other capitol buildings. However, it does not itself represent or embody the spread of American Renaissance Classicism outside of the urbanized Northeastern states and its adoption nationally as the accepted style for public architecture. The second of the American Renaissance capitols to be designed, and the first to be started after the World’s Columbian Exposition, was the Minnesota State Capitol (1896-1905) (Cass Gilbert, architect). This was another very significant and highly influential building, and it exemplifies the spread of academic Classicism to prosperous cities of the upper Midwest. (At the end of the nineteenth century St. Paul, with a population of 163,065 in 1900, was a vastly larger city than Jackson, which had a population of only 7,816.) The importance of these two buildings was summed up by Hitchcock and Seale in Temples of Democracy: The Capitols of Minnesota and Rhode Island were both completed in the first decade of the twentieth century. They became important models which were never really copied, but which loomed behind every other project off that kind for a whole generation. If any American capitols ever represented the high style of their period, it is these two.129 It is interesting to note that the Mississippi capitol, begun in 1901 and completed in 1903, was finished before the Rhode Island and Minnesota capitols were completed. At the same time that the Minnesota capitol was under construction, a state capitol was being built for Montana (1896-1902; enlarged 1909-12) (Charles E. Bell and J.H. Kent, of Helena, original architects). Although Classical in design, it is rather austere, and its architectural unity was altered when it was substantially enlarged, giving it a sprawling nine-part façade. The building most comparable to the Mississippi State Capitol in many respects is the Arkansas State Capitol (1899- 1915). Although begun one year before the Mississippi Capitol, it was not completed until twelve years after it. The initial designer and original architect of the Arkansas State Capitol was George R. Mann, of St. Louis. He was dismissed from the project in 1909, and Cass Gilbert, architect of the Minnesota State Capitol, was subsequently hired to complete the building. The building therefore lacks the architectural unity seen in the Mississippi capitol. This is especially evident in the dome. Mann’s design had incorporated a dome based on the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, but the dome that was finally built was designed by Gilbert. It has an encircling peristyle like the dome of the Mississippi capitol, but it has unfluted Ionic columns, reflecting the columns of the façade but giving the building a more austere character. The portico of the Arkansas capitol is smaller and more restrained than the portico of the Mississippi capitol, and does not have a sculpted tympanum. The most notable architectural difference is that the body of the building is rectilinear on all four sides, with a portico at each end, where the Mississippi capitol has a peristyle apse at each end. About a year after construction began on the Mississippi capitol, work was started on the Pennsylvania State Capitol (1902-06) (NHL, 2006). This building is an exceptionally fine example of Beaux Arts Classicism, and it is located within an elegantly composed complex expressing the aesthetic of the City Beautiful movement.130 In its grandeur, however, it tells a very different story than is told by the Mississippi capitol. Built as the capitol of a wealthy, populous Northeastern state, in a region rich in professional architects, skilled artists and artisans, and highly
129 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, p. 218. 130 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination, Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex, Harrisonburg, Pennsylvania (September 4, 2012).
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capable building contractors and craftsmen, it expresses the highest achievements of American Renaissance architecture, but, like the Rhode Island state house, it does not in itself exemplify the widespread adoption of academic Classicism as a truly national movement. The Idaho State Capitol (1905-20, Tourtellotte & Hummel) is similar to the Mississippi capitol in its architectural character and in its historical context. Indeed, it was built in a city even smaller than Jackson and even further moved from the centers of development of American Renaissance architecture in the Northeast. (The population of Boise, Idaho, in 1900 was only 5,957.) It was built, however, somewhat later than the Mississippi capitol, and its supervisory commission regarded Mississippi’s capitol as a model for the design of their own building.131 The Idaho capitol was built in two phases, the central block in 1905-12 and the wings in 1919-21, so it, too, lacks the architectural unity of the Mississippi capitol. The Kentucky State Capitol (1905-09, Frank Mills Andrews, architect) and the South Dakota State Capitol (1907- 10, Charles Emlen Bell, architect) are both noteworthy examples of American Renaissance state houses. Like the Mississippi capitol, each of these buildings was built within a short span of years under the direction of a single architect, but they were built slightly later, having been started after the completion of the Mississippi building, and the historic contexts of their construction are different. Although they, too, embody the nationwide adoption of academic Classicism during this period, they do not illustrate this as clearly or as powerfully as the Mississippi capitol. The Wisconsin State Capitol (NHL, 2001), built from 1906 to 1917, is comparable in many respects to the capitols of Minnesota in the Midwest and Pennsylvania in the Northeast, in terms of both its architectural character and its historic context. Its national significance, however, is derived as much from its close association with the La Follette family and the Progressive Movement as from its architecture. The capitols of Utah (1912-15), Missouri (1913-17), and Oklahoma (1914-17) were all begun several years after the completion of the Mississippi capitol, by which time the use of academic Classicism for state capitol buildings was well established. The Washington Legislative Building (1922-28) and the West Virginia State Capitol (1924-32) were begun even later, after the end of World War I. Their architectural and historical context is therefore different from the capitol buildings erected earlier in the century. All of the state capitol buildings erected between the 1890s and the 1920s are major governmental buildings expressing the academic Classicism of the American Renaissance, and all of them can be viewed superficially as examples of Beaux Arts-influenced domed capitol buildings; but each has its own individual character and each has its own story. Of all of these buildings, the state capitol that most vividly expresses, in a single building, both the fully-expressed architectural character of Beaux-Arts-influenced Classicism, as interpreted by a single architect, and the popular adoption of academic Classicism throughout the United States as a national architectural movement at the turn of the twentieth century is the Mississippi State Capitol. Some persons and firms involved with construction of the Capitol 1900-1903 Theodore C. Link, of St. Louis, architect The architect of the Mississippi State Capitol was Theodore Carl Link (1850-1923) of St. Louis, Missouri. A native of Heidelberg, Germany, Link studied architecture and engineering in Paris 132 before immigrating to the United States in 1870. He settled in St. Louis and resided there for most of his life, though he also worked briefly in
131 “About the History of Idaho’s Capitol,” a brochure published by the Idaho Capitol Commission, viewed on-line on October 7, 2013 (www.capitolcommission.idaho.gov/.../idaho_capitol_history_brochure ). 132 There is some disagreement among various published sources as to which of the major architectural and engineering schools in Paris Link attended, but according to a biographical sketch in The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, volume 12 (New York: James T. White & Company, 1904), p. 104, and several other contemporary sources, he attended the École des Arts et Metiers. It is sometimes incorrectly asserted that Link attended the École des Beaux-Arts, but that is an error that is probably derived, in many instances, from an inaccurate biographical sketch of Link that was published in Henry F. Withey and Elise Rathburn Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased) (Los Angeles: Hennessey and Ingalls, 1970; originally published 1956), pp. 373-374.
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Pittsburgh and in New York. He had ties to Mississippi, however, though his wife, Annie C. Fuller, whom he married in 1875. Annie Fuller Link’s uncle Sylvester Emory Cary was a prominent resident of Holly Springs, Mississippi. Link and his wife visited Holly Springs on several occasions and Link carried out several important architectural projects there. 133 Link worked in partnership with Edward Cameron St. Louis in 1891. He worked with Alfred Rosenheim and William B. Ittner from 1894 to 1896 and in partnership with Rosenheim from 1896 to 1898. From 1898 to 1911 he practiced independently. In 1911 he formed a partnership with his son Karl, who died in 1913. Link practiced in partnership with Wilbur Trueblood from 1915 until his own death in 1923.134 Link was an exceptionally versatile architect, working skillfully on a variety of building types and landscapes, including churches, governmental buildings, exhibition halls, collegiate buildings and college campus plans, hospitals, power plants, commercial buildings, railroad depots, YMCA buildings, public parks, and numerous private residences. These designs spanned a very wide range of architectural styles. His religious buildings included several different modes of Gothic and Romanesque architecture as well as Neoclassical Revival. His residential works spanned the Queen Anne, Shingle Style, Richardsonian Romanesque, Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, Neoclassical Revival, and Renaissance Revival styles, as well as combinations of styles and more individualistic designs, many showing a Prairie Style influence. His office buildings were generally in the Chicago Commercial Style, expressing a confident use of steel frame construction. Several of his designs, including the Palace of Mines and Metallurgy at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904, were in a free and imaginative style which Link himself called “Secession” in reference to the Vienna Secession Movement. His last designs, for Louisiana State University, were in a freely-interpreted Italian Renaissance style. The most widely recognized and acclaimed of Link’s works in his own lifetime was Union Station in St. Louis (1891-94), and it remains his most recognized and acclaimed building, having been designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970 as “the country's finest surviving example of the High Victorian picturesque eclectic style as applied to railroad stations in the 19th century.” Another of Link’s most prominent buildings was the Wabash Terminal in Pittsburgh (1903-04), a lavish Beaux-Arts building that was part railroad station and part high-rise office building. Other railroad buildings included Union Station in Little Rock, Arkansas (1907 and 1920-21) (National Register), and depots for the Wabash Railroad in Missouri, Illinois and Ohio. Link’s religious works included Lindell Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Louis (1896-97; later relocated and rebuilt), Shaare Emuth Temple in St. Louis (1897; not extant), First Presbyterian Church in Alton, Illinois (1897), Second Presbyterian Church in St. Louis (1899-1900) (National Register, 1975), St. John’s Methodist Church in St. Louis (1901-03) (in the Holy Corners Historic District, National Register, 1975), and Niedringhaus Memorial Methodist Church in Granite City, Illinois (1906). Link prepared master campus plans for Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Among his many collegiate buildings are several buildings at Monticello Seminary (now Lewis and Clark Community College), Godfrey, Illinois (1899); the Hall of Science at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri (1901); the Mississippi Synodical College Building in Holly Springs, Mississippi (1903); Reid Hall at Washington and Lee University (1904); several buildings at the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, and the University of Southern Mississippi (1920-21); and several buildings at Louisiana State University (1922-23), including the Memorial Tower. (Many of these buildings are listed on the National Register either individually or as parts of historic districts.) The Mississippi State Capitol was Link’s most prominent governmental building, but he also submitted a proposed design for the Idaho State Capitol, in 1905, which ranked second place in the design competition, 135 and in 1912 he submitted a proposed design for the Missouri State Capitol; and he served as a consultant on the Arkansas State Capitol. In addition, he designed the Madison County Courthouse in Fredericktown, Missouri (1899) (National Register) and directed the renovation of the Old Mississippi State Capitol (National Historic Landmark) in 1916-17.
133 Information provided by Gary Tetley of St. Louis, Missouri. 134 Information provided by Gary Tetley of St. Louis, Missouri. 135 “About the History of Idaho’s Capitol,” a brochure published by the Idaho Capitol Commission, p. 4, viewed on-line on October 7, 2013 (www.capitolcommission.idaho.gov/.../idaho_capitol_history_brochure ).
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In 1920, the Mississippi Legislature established the State Bond Improvement Commission to oversee the expenditure of funds generated from a state bond program for construction and improvement of numerous state- owned properties throughout Mississippi. Impressed by Theodore Link from his work as architect of the new Capitol, and more recently as architect for the renovation of the Old Capitol, the Senate Finance Committee hired him to conduct a survey of needs and estimate of costs for the Bond Improvement program, and subsequently the Bond Improvement Commission hired him to work full-time as its supervising architect. In this position, he was responsible for overseeing all the construction and repair work authorized by the Commission, and his firm, Link and Trueblood, was designated to design all of the new buildings to be constructed under the program. The Commission was lavish in their praise of Link and his work, writing, in their first report to the Legislature: Mr. Link was known to us as a man of national reputation in his profession. For nearly twenty years his name has been associated with the erection of the new capitol of our State. Only recently we had seen monumental expression of his ability, in the preservation, along intensely practical lines, of the Old Capitol. … Mr. Link made no application for this position. We selected him on our own initiative, and solely because, in the exercise of our best efforts to reach a wise decision having only the interest of the state in mind it seemed best for us to do so. His selection does not warrant any inference or conclusion which would in the slightest degree reflect upon the character of any other architect. It simply means that for the particular situation which confronted us, we felt that we could use his services probably to better advantage than we could those of any other man who was available to us. And we do not consider it a violation of the proprieties to say here that Mr. Link has fully measured up to our expectations. He has complied with the spirit, no less than the letter, of his contract. He is a man of broad vision, of deep sympathies, and of infinite patience. He has given to the State, though this work, the best that it has been his to give. He has given up his residence in St. Louis, and has devoted his entire time and thought to the problems of your Commission. 136 When contrasted with the volatile and contentious relations that have existed between many governmental project commissions and their architects, this is high praise indeed! After the majority of the architectural work for the State Bond Improvement Commission was well underway, no longer needing his direct supervision, Link took a leave of absence from that position in 1922 in order to move to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to design the overall plan and original buildings for the new campus of Louisiana State University. 137 While he was in Baton Rouge, he died on November 12, 1923, after a brief illness, at the age of 73.138 Following his death, the State Bond Improvement Commission, in their final report to the Legislature in 1924, said of him, “…He was a great architect; a great artist; a gentleman in the truest sense of the term; and a devoted and loyal friend. His attachment to Mississippi, to which he referred as his adopted State, was both deep and sincere.” Link was so highly regarded in Mississippi that after his death the Legislature adopted a Concurrent Resolution officially expressing its sorrow.139 Theodore Link is generally not mentioned in the broad published architectural histories. There may be several reasons for that. One reason is that Link was not a polemicist or a theoretician. Unlike some other well known architects of his time, he did not write books expressing his architectural ideas. He was focused on the creation of well-designed and well-constructed buildings that satisfied his clients. A second reason he is not more widely recognized is that Link practiced out of St. Louis, instead of one of the major cities of the Northeast, so his work was not, and is not today, as visible to East Coast-based architectural historians and architectural commentators, who have therefore tended to regard Link as being only of “regional” prominence. A third reason for his lack of national recognition may have been Link’s very versatility itself: he was so good at so many different things that he has not
136 Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission. First Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission (1922), pp. 8-9. 137 Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission. Final Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission (1924), p. 14. 138 J. Michael Desmond, The Architecture of LSU (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013), p. 40; and Final Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission (1924), p. 14. 139 Mississippi Senate, Senate Journal (1924), index, p. 2209, a xerographic copy of which is located in the Subject file, “Link, Theodore,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
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been considered exceptional in any one area of specialization, except to some extent as a designer of railroad stations, largely on account of his design of Union Station in St. Louis, even though he was by no means a specialist in railroad architecture. To regard Union Station as the best example of Link’s work may perhaps not reflect a clear understanding of either the range of Link’s work or of the history of Union Station itself. As Paul Clifford Larson notes in The Spirit of H.H. Richardson on the Midland Prairies, Link produced the Union Station in partnership with Edward Cameron, who had worked in Richardson’s office, and it is difficult to say how much of its design is attributable toCameron. Larson writes: …[A]fter Richardson’s death, Cameron returned [from Chicago] to his hometown of St. Louis and by 1891 had formed a partnership with the rising architect Theodore Link. Their dissociation in 1894 and Cameron’s untimely death four years later have obscured Cameron’s rightful recognition as co-architect of the Union Station in St. Louis … one of the crowning achievements of the brief Richardsonian era in American architecture.140 The wide diversity of types of building designed by Link, and the very wide variety of their architectural styles, show that that he was an exceptionally versatile and talented architect. He was a consummate Eclectic in an age of Eclecticism, and one single building (even one so notable and widely recognized as Union Station in St. Louis) cannot express the variety and technical skill of his work. To appreciate the masterful eclecticism of Link, one must consider any one of his buildings within the broader context of the wide range of his works. In terms of its scale, its complexity, its manner of construction, and its mastery of detail, the Mississippi State Capitol can be considered to be one of Link’s greatest works.
Bernard R. Green, of Washington, D.C., design selection consultant Bernard Richardson Green (1843-1914) was a prominent civil engineer most noted for his work as the superintendent of construction for the Library of Congress (now called the Thomas Jefferson Building) in Washington, D.C., which was begun in 1890 and completed in 1897 (NHL, 1965). He was also involved in the construction of the State, War, and Navy Building (later known as the Old Executive Office Building, now called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) (NHL, 1971) as an assistant to Colonel (later Brigadier General) Thomas Lincoln Casey (1831-1896), who directed the later phases of its construction from 1877 to 1888. Green also worked with Casey on the completion of the Washington Monument from 1879 to 1885.141 Green served a brief but very important role as consultant to the State House Commission in the selection of the architect for the Capitol and in making recommendations for changes to the proposed design, which were incorporated into the final design. On May 18, 1900, the Mississippi State House Commission, faced with the difficult task of selecting an architect for the Capitol building from the numerous architects who had submitted proposed designs, adopted a resolution authorizing the president of the commission “to employ Mr. Bernard Green, builder of the Congressional library building at Washington, D.C., to come to Jackson and act with this commission in examining the plans and specifications for a New Capitol building.”142 On June 7,1900, Green met with the commission in Jackson and “entered upon the discharge of his duties.” 143 On June 11 he made a report to the commission giving his evaluation of the submitted plans. He recommended the selection of the architect of Design No. 5, which was the proposed plan submitted by Theodore Link. He made some positive comments about Design No. 8 (which had been submitted by George R. Mann) and Design No. 13 (which had been submitted by G.W. Bunting, of Indianapolis, Indiana), but
140 Paul Clifford Larson, “H.H. Richardson Goes West: The Rise and Fall of an Eastern Star,” in The Spirit of H.H. Richardson on the Midland Prairies: Regional Transformations of an Architectural Style, Paul Clifford Larson, editor (Ames., Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 1988), p. 27. 141 “Green, Bernard Richardson,” The 20th Century Biography of Notable Americans, vol. 4, p. 387. 142 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, p. 17 (Official Records Series 637, in the collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History) 143 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, p. 18.
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was dismissive of the other designs.144 Green also made some recommendations for the improvement of Design No. 5, which Link subsequently incorporated into his final design. These recommendations included the omission of the tower shown in the original design, the addition of an attic story, the inclusion of floor glazing in the upper corridors to provide illumination down to the first story corridor, and the placement of a basement entrance within a porte cochere located under the front steps. 145 The span of time of Green’s involvement with the design of the Capitol was very brief, but his contribution, in selecting Link’s proposed design and in making recommendations for its improvement, was of great importance to the success of the project. From 1901 to 1906 Bernard R. Green served as the superintendent of construction for the Pennsylvania State Capitol (NHL, 2013).146 He was also the superintendent of construction for the National Museum of Natural History (originally called the United States National Museum), a part of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. (1904-1911, Hornblower & Marshall, architects).147 Green was widely recognized as a leading authority on the design of libraries and library shelving systems. In 1908 the Snead and Company Iron Works of Jersey City, New Jersey, published a book describing the library stack system devised by Green and citing numerous libraries where the system had been installed. The book was revised and reissued, under a slightly different title, in 1911.148 Green served as a consultant for the library stacks for the New York Public Library, designed by Carrère and Hastings and completed in 1911.149 Bernard R. Green died in 1914 and is buried at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington.
W.A. and A.E. Wells, of Chicago, general contractors The firm of W.A. and A.E. Wells, of Chicago, was selected as the general construction contractors for the Capitol on December 13, 1900.150 The contract was signed on December 18, to become effective on January 1, 1901. The State House Commission voted on August 20, 1903, to accept the completed building from the contractors. 151 The firm was established in 1880 as partnership between Warren Ayer Wells (1830-1899) and his eldest son Addison E. Wells (1856-1933). During the 1890s the company was very active in the construction of steel-frame buildings in Chicago, erecting many of the city’s major commercial buildings, including the Ayer Building (1899, Holabird & Roche, architects) (National Register) (HABS), the Cable Building (1899, Holabird & Roche, architects) (not extant) (HABS), and the Fine Arts Building (Studebaker Building) (1885 and 1898, Solon S. Bemon, architect).152 They also erected buildings in St. Louis, Detroit, and Duluth. 153
144 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 19-26. 145 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 23-24. 146 The State Capitol of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa.: The Telegraph Printing Company, 1906), pp. 86, 91-92. (The National Historic Landmark nomination for the Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex does not mention Green’s involvement with that capitol building.) 147 Richard Rathbun, A Descriptive Account of the Building Recently Erected for the Departments of Natural History of the United States National Museum (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1913), pp. 11, 13; and Smithsonian Institution, Archives, Index listing for “United States National Museum, Superintendent of Construction for the United States National Museum Building, Records, 1903-1911” (Smithsonian Institution Archives record unit 81 [RU000081]). http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_216688 148 Snead and Company Iron Works, Book Stack and Shelving for Libraries, Designed by Bernard R. Green (Jersey City, N.J., 1908), and Snead and Company Iron Works, Library Planning, Bookstacks and Shelving (Jersey City, N.J., 1911). 149 “Undertaking Its Destruction, “ The Wall Street Journal, on-line edition (December 3, 2012), http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323751104578151653883688578, cited in ELMALVANEY [pseud.], “Mississippi’s Connection to the New York Public Library,” Preservation in Mississippi (January 3, 2013), http://misspreservation.com/2013/01/03/mississippis-connection-to-the-new-york-public-library/ 150 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, p. 184. 151 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 586. 152 That these buildings were constructed by the firm of W.A. and A.E. Wells is documented in A History of the City of Chicago, Its Men and Institutions (Chicago: Inter Ocean, 1900), p. 307. 153 A History of the City of Chicago, Its Men and Institutions, p. 307.
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Following the death of W.A. Wells in 1899, the firm was reorganized in 1901 as the Wells Brothers Company, with A.E. Wells as president, in partnership with and his brothers Fred Amasa Wells (1859-1922) and Judd E. Wells (1865-1946). Although the firm used the name “Wells Brothers Company” during most of the time that the Mississippi State Capitol was under construction, the minutes of the State House Commission indicate that the Commission (desiring consistency in the financial accounts and other public records) insisted that all of the firm’s communication with the State in connection with the Capitol contract be submitted using the name “W.A. and A.E. Wells” instead of “Wells Brothers.” 154 The Commission minutes show that Judd E. Wells was the on-site representative of the company, for business purposes,155 although the supervisor of construction for the company was Theodore H. Schlader. An advertisement published in 1902 identifies the firm as “Wells Brothers Company, successors to W.A. & A.E. Wells, General Building Construction,” with offices in Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Jackson (at the Mississippi State Capitol Building).156 Major works finished by the firm after the completion of the Mississippi State Capitol included the Chicago Building (Chicago Savings Bank Building) (1904, Holabird & Roche, architects) (National Register) and the Republic Building (1905, Holabird & Roche, architects) (not extant) (HABS) in Chicago, and the Belvidere Hotel (1903, Parker &Thomas, architects) (National Register) in Baltimore. The brothers also established a separate firm, Wells Brothers Company of New York, with F.A. Wells as president. This related firm erected numerous prominent buildings in New York City and major buildings in Syracuse and Philadelphia.
Louis J. Millet, subcontractor for art glass The original stained glass and other decorative glasswork in the Capitol was executed by the firm of Louis J. Millet of Chicago. However, because he was a subcontractor to W.A. and A.E. Wells, rather than working directly for the State House Commission, there are few documentary records of his involvement. Louis J. Millet (1856-1923) was a noted designer and decorative artist specializing in stained glass. A native of New York, he attended the École des Beaux-Arts and the École des Arts Decoratifs in Paris before setting in Chicago, where he and George Healy established an architectural decorative arts firm. Healy and Millet worked closely with the architect Louis Sullivan in creating the interiors of the Auditorium Building (1889) 157 (NHL, 1975) and the Kehilath Anshe Ma’ariv Synagogue (Pilgrim Baptist Church) (1890-91) 158 in Chicago. They also carried out Sullivan’s stencil designs for the Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room (1894). After the firm of Healy & Millet was dissolved in 1899, Millet continued in practice independently as an architectural decorative artist.159 After the completion of the Mississippi State Capitol, Millet worked with Sullivan in creating the interiors of the National Farmers Bank in Owatonna, Minnesota (1904-08) (NHL, 1976).160 He also designed a notable stained glass window for Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago (National Historic Landmark, 2013),161 and worked with architect George Washington Mayer on several buildings, including the J.R. Watkins Company Administration Building (1911-13) (National Register) in Winona, Minnesota.
154 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, p. 449. 155 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, pp. 215, 371. 156 An advertisement in A Catalogue of the Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club (St. Louis, 1902), p. 92. Included in the exhibition was Link’s drawing of the main elevation of the Mississippi State Capitol, and a photograph of the construction of the Capitol accompanied the advertisement by the Wells Brothers Company. 157 Alice Sinkevitch, editor, AIA Guide to Chicago (San Diego and New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1993), pp. 46-48. 158 Sinkevitch, ed., AIA Guide to Chicago, pp. 378-379. 159 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination, Second Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Illinois (September 4, 2012), pp. 46-47. 160 Lauren S. Weingarden, “The Colors of Nature: Louis Sullivan’s Architectural Polychromy and Nineteenth-Century Color Theory,” Winterthur Portfolio, 20:4 (Winter 1985), 258-259. 161 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination, Second Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Illinois (September 4, 2012), pp. 46-47.
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Robert P. Bringhurst, sculptor, designer of the pediment Robert Porter Bringhurst (1855-1925) was a sculptor and art teacher who worked in St. Louis. He executed several large sculptural works for the Trans-Mississippi Exposition (the Omaha World’s Fair) in 1898 and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (the St. Louis World’s Fair) in 1904. His most recognized surviving works are his bronze statue of Ulysses S. Grant (1888), located on the grounds of the City Hall in St. Louis, and his monument to Elijah P. Lovejoy (1897) in Alton, Illinois. Bringhurst was the designer of the sculptural composition in the tympanum of the front portico of the Mississippi State Capitol, but the work was largely carried out by stone-carvers working from his model.
Wollaeger Manufacturing Company, contractor for custom-made wood furniture The Wollaeger Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, built the custom-made wood furniture for the Capitol, including the Speaker’s rostrum in the House of Representatives Chamber, the President’s podium in the Senate Chamber, and the Justices’ bench in the Supreme Court Chamber. According to an advertisement in a builders’ supply directory from 1912, the firm manufactured “special furniture and fixtures for banks, offices and public buildings in wood, marble, and bronze, executed from architects’ or our own designs.” They produced “special work only; no stock goods.” Besides the Mississippi State Capitol, the Wollaeger Manufacturing Company provided custom-made furniture for the Wisconsin State Capitol (George B. Post & Sons, architects), the Kentucky State Capitol (Frank M. Andrews & Co., architects), the Montana State Capitol (Bell & Kent, architects), the Washington State Capitol (W.A. Ritchie, architect), and the Library of Congress (Bernard R. Green, listed as architect), as well as numerous courthouses and banks throughout the United States.162
J.F. Barnes, superintendent of construction John F. Barnes (1850-1919) was a building contractor who resided in Greenville, Mississippi, before moving to Jackson in 1901 to become superintendent of construction for the Mississippi State Capitol. In this capacity he served as the on-site agent for the State House Commission, ensuring that the construction work was being done according to the plans and specifications and providing monthly reports to the commission on the progress of the work. Before taking this position, he had been the contractor for numerous notable buildings in Mississippi, including the Old Bolivar County Courthouse (1889) in Rosedale, the Washington County Courthouse (1891) in Greenville, Temple Gemiluth Chassed (1891-92) in Port Gibson, the Old First Presbyterian Church (1891-92) in Jackson, and the Masonic Temple (1895) in Biloxi. After the completion of the Mississippi State Capitol, he built numerous prominent buildings in Jackson, including the Cowan Hotel (1905), the Pythian Castle (1906), the Carnegie Library at Millsaps College (1906-07) (none of which is extant), and several public schools.163
Some persons and firms involved with the Capitol and its grounds, 1904-c.1935
Belle Kinney, sculptor, designer of the Monument to the Women of the Confederacy (1917) Belle Kinney (1890–1959) was a sculptor noted for her bronze statuary. Born in Nashville, she spent her early years in Tennessee and later worked in New York. In 1897, at the age of 7, she won a youth sculpture competition at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. She later attended the Art Institute of Chicago, where she subsequently served as an instructor. In 1921 she married Austrian-born sculptor Leopold F. Scholz (1877-1946), and collaborated with him on several commissions.164 Besides the Monument to the Women of the Confederacy, her major works include the bust of Colonel Richard Owen in the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis (1913), the statue of Andrew Jackson in the United States Capitol
162 Building Trade Catalogs (New York: Associated Builders Catalog Co., 1912), Section 43A, no. 3, viewed on Google Books. 163 Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Historic Preservation Division. Historic Resources Inventory Database. Artisan files. 164 Pamela H. Simpson, “Belle Kinney,” The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, Volume 1, edited by Joan M. Marter (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 45.
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(1927), the statue of John Sevier in the U.S. Capitol (1931), the Victory sculpture at the Bronx County World War I Memorial in New York (1933), and a bust of Admiral Albert Gleaves at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis (1938).165 In 1910, when Kinney was only 20 years old, her design was selected by the United Confederate Veterans as the recommended design for a monument to the Women of the Confederacy. The organization had intended that the design be used for similar monuments throughout the South, but only Mississippi and Tennessee erected monuments using her design.166 The Mississippi monument was completed and unveiled in 1917, and the Tennessee monument in 1926.
Theodore C. Link, supervising architect for the State Bond Improvement Commission (1920-23) Link’s second period of involvement with the Mississippi State Capitol came when he served as the supervising architect for the State Bond Improvement Commission from 1920 until his death in 1923. In this position, he supervised work on state-owned buildings throughout Mississippi, and his firm designed new buildings at several state institutions, including the University of Mississippi and the schools that would later become Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, and the University of Southern Mississippi. Work at the Capitol that was administered by the State Bond Improvement Commission consisted of the installation of an electrical power converter, a new telephone switchboard, a new mail distribution box, and other such mundane improvements. One task carried out at the Capitol under this program was the purchase and installation of the two flagstaffs positioned in front of the building. These two flagstaffs remain today as the only visible features associated with Link’s second period of involvement with the New Capitol. After about August of 1922, Link’s association with the Bond Improvement Commission was only nominal, for he had taken a leave of absence from his position with that agency to design the new campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he died on November 12, 1923.167
Vinson B. Smith, Jr., architect for alterations to the Governor’s Office (1930) Vinson B. Smith, Jr. (1891-1964) was an architect based in Gulfport, Mississippi, who directed renovations to the governor’s office suite in 1930, at the request of Governor Theodore Bilbo. His works included the G. B. Dantzler House in Gulfport (1924) (NR), the campus plan and several of the original buildings of the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield (1928-1930), the Administration Building and Bennett Auditorium at what is now the University of Southern Mississippi (1928-29), and two public schools in Gulfport (1934). Later in the 1930s he formed a partnership with Carl B. Olschner. Their firm oversaw the construction of the (old) Pascagoula High School in Pascagoula, Mississippi, completed in 1939.168 In the late 1940s Smith worked in partnership with John M. Lachin, Jr.169
______9. Major Bibliographical References
165 Simpson, “Belle Kinney,” p. 45. 166 Elise L. Smith, “Belle Kinney and the Confederate Women’s Monument,” Southern Quarterly, 32:4 (Summer 1944), pp. 6- 31; Gaines M. Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 175-178. 167 Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission. Final Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission (1924), p. 14. 168 Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Historic Preservation Division. Historic Resources Inventory Database. Artisan files. 169 Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Historic Preservation Division. Historic Resources Inventory Database. Artisan files; and 1947 city directory, Gulfport, Mississippi, p. 427, viewed on Ancestry.com on October 6, 2013.
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Bibliography (Cite the books, articles, and other sources used in preparing this form.)
“Addison E. Wells, Noted Architect, Dies At 76.” Manitowoc Herald-Times, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, November 4, 1933. Allen, William C. History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics. Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press of the Pacific, 2005. (Originally published in hardcover in 2001.) The American Architect and Building News, vol. 70, no. 1304 (December 22, 1900). Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club; Illustrated Catalogue of Drawings and Examples of Work in the Allied Arts. St. Louis, 1902. Appelbaum, Stanley. The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893: A Photographic Record. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1980. Bach, Ira J., editor. Chicago’s Famous Buildings. Third Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Bailey, Robert J. History of the Mississippi State Capitol. Unpublished manuscript prepared for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 2004. Bolotin, Norman, and Christine Laing. The World’s Columbian Exposition: The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002. (Originally published by Preservation Press in 1992.) Clark, E.C. “Mississippi State Capitol.” The Inland Architect and News Record, 42:3 (October 1903). Curl, James Stevens. Classical Architecture: An Introduction to Its Vocabulary and Essentials, with a Select Glossary of Terms. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001. (Originally published in 1992). Desmond, J. Michael. The Architecture of LSU. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013. ELMALVANEY [pseud.] “Critiquing the New Capitol Designs (1900) [Part 1].” Preservation in Mississippi, May 24, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/05/24/critiquing-the-new-capitol-designs-1900/ ELMALVANEY [pseud.] “Critiquing the New Capitol Designs (1900) – Part 2.” Preservation in Mississippi, May 25, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/05/25/critiquing-the-new-capitol-designs-1900-part-2/ ELMALVANEY [pseud.] “Critiquing the New Capitol Designs [Part 3] – Bernard Green’s unofficial opinion.” Preservation in Mississippi, May 26, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/05/26/critiquing-the-new-capitol- designs-bernard-greens-unofficial-opinion/ ELMALVANEY [pseud.] “Mississippi’s Connection to the New York Public Library.” Preservation in Mississippi, January 3, 2013. http://misspreservation.com/2013/01/03/mississippis-connection-to-the-new- york-public-library/ ELMALVANEY [pseud.] “More Architect/Builder Pics: Link and Barnes.” Preservation in Mississippi, December 1, 2009. http://misspreservation.com/2009/12/01/more-architect-pics-link-and-barnes/ ELMALVANEY [pseud.] “The Story of Mississippi’s New Capitol [Part 1]: Hiring an Architect.” Preservation in Mississippi, January 25, 2010. http://misspreservation.com/2010/01/25/the-story-of-mississippis-new-capitol- hiring-an-architect/ ELMALVANEY [pseud.] “The Story of Mississippi’s New Capitol [Part 2]: Hiring the Contractor.” Preservation in Mississippi, January 26, 2010. http://misspreservation.com/2010/01/26/the-story-of-mississippis-new- capitol-hiring-the-contractor/ ELMALVANEY [pseud.] “The Story of Mississippi’s New Capitol [Part 3]: Git-R-Done.” Preservation in Mississippi, January 27, 2010. http://misspreservation.com/2010/01/27/the-story-of-mississippis-new-capitol- git-r-done/
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ELMALVANEY [pseud.] “The Story of Mississippi’s New Capitol [Part 4]: Barnes and Link report in.” Preservation in Mississippi, January 28, 2010. http://misspreservation.com/2010/01/28/the-story-of- mississippis-new-capitol-barnes-and-link-report/ Fletcher, Bannister. A History of Architecture (eighteenth edition, revised by J. C. Palmes). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975. Goodsell, Charles T. The American Statehouse: Interpreting Democracy’s Temples. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2001. Gowans, Alan. Styles and Types of North American Architecture: Social Function and Cultural Expression. New York: HarperCollins, 1993 (© 1992). Green, Bernard Richardson. The 20th Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Vol. 4. Boston: The Biographical Society, 1904. “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (booklet). 2013. A History of the City of Chicago, Its Men and Institutions. Chicago: Inter Ocean, 1900. The State Capitol of Pennsylvania. Harrisburg, Pa.: The Telegraph Printing Company, 1906. Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, and William Seale. Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. Jacobs, James. “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks.” U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. February 2009. Jordy, William H. American Buildings and Their Architects: Progressive and Academic Ideals at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Garden City, New York: Anchor, 1976 (paperback). Originally printed 1972. Kidney, Walter C. The Architecture of Choice: Eclecticism in America, 1880-1930. New York: George Braziller, 1974. Kinsey, Joni L. “Link, Theodore C. (1850-1923).” Dictionary of Missouri Biography. Edited by Lawrence O. Christensen. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1999. “Link, Theodore C.” The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, volume 12. New York: James T. White & Company, 1904. Marquis, Albert Nelson, editor. The Book of Chicagoans: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men of the City of Chicago, Volume 2. Chicago, A.N. Marquis & Company, 1911. (viewed on-line) Mississippi. Adjutant General. Biennial Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Mississippi for the Years 1924-1925. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Capitol Building, New: 1897-1919.” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Capitol Building, New: 1920-1939.” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Capitol Building, New: Historical Sketches and Undated.” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Liberty Bell.” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Link, Theodore.”
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Mississippi State Capitol Hinds County (Additional Documentation) Mississippi Name of Property County and State
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Mississippi, U.S.S. (2nd) (1905).” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Administration Division. Pre-Renovation Photographs of New Capitol, 1977. Official Records, Series 2351: Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Historic Preservation Division. Historic Resources Inventory Database. Artisan files. Mississippi Official and Statistical Register. 1904. Mississippi Official and Statistical Register. 1908. Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission. Architectural Drawings and Blueprints, 1905-1923; undated. Official Records, Series 667, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission. Building Project Files and Correspondence, 1919-1924. Official Records, Series 666, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission. First Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission. 1922. Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission. Final Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission. 1924. Official Records, Series 669, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Mississippi State Building Commission; Mississippi Bureau of Building, Grounds, and Real Property Management. Contract Files, 1952-1963. Official Records, Series 1542, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Mississippi State Building Commission; Mississippi Bureau of Building, Grounds, and Real Property Management. Project Files, 1942-1971. Official Records, Series 1646, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Mississippi State Building Commission files: New Capitol Construction, Repairs, and Restoration, 1900-1982. Official Records, Series 142, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Mississippi State House Commission. Commission Files, 1900-1903. Official Records, Series 634, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Mississippi State House Commission. Minutes, 1900-1904. Official Records, Series 637, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Mississippi State House Commission. Photographs of New Capitol, 1900-1903. Official Records, Series 317, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Mississippi State House Commission. Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone of Mississippi’s New State House in the City of Jackson on June 3, 1903. Jackson: Tucker Printing House, the Mississippi State House Commission, 1903. “New Offices To Afford Privacy.” Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi), October 15, 1930. Reed, Henry Hope. The United States Capitol: Its Architecture and Decoration. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005. Roland, Dunbar, editor. “Capitol, New.” Mississippi, Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form. Volume I, A-K. Atlanta, Georgia: Southern Historical Publications Association, 1907. Rosell, Thomas [pseud.] “A Rosetta Stone and Truth about the Dome?” Preservation in Mississippi, September 6, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/09/06/a-rosetta-stone-and-truth-about-the-dome/. Sanborn Map Company. Fire Insurance Maps of Jackson, Mississippi. February 1892 (sheet 2), March 1900 (sheet 2), October 1904 (sheet 7), July 1909 (sheet 11), and April 1914 (sheet 14). Simmonds, Tricia. St. Paul’s Cathedral. Bath, England: Unichrome, Ltd., 1992.
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Simpson, Pamela H. “Kinney, Belle.” The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, Volume 1, edited by Joan M. Marter. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Sinkevitch, Alice, editor. AIA Guide to Chicago. San Diego and New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1993. Skates, John Ray. Mississippi’s Old Capitol: Biography of a Building. Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1990. Smith, Elise L. “Belle Kinney and the Confederate Women’s Monument.” Southern Quarterly, 32:4 (Summer 1944): 6-31. “State Accepts Liberty Bell in Formal Ceremony.” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), July 5, 1950. Thrane, Susan W., and Tom Patterson. State Houses: America’s 50 State Capitol Buildings. Erin, Ontario, Canada: Boston Mills Press, 2005. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. National Historic Landmark Nomination, Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. September 4, 2012. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. National Historic Landmark Nomination, Second Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Illinois. September 4, 2012. Waterman, A.N., editor. Historical Review of Chicago and Cook County and Selected Biography. Volume 2. Chicago and New York, Lewis Publishing Co., 1908. Weingarden, Lauren S. “The Colors of Nature: Louis Sullivan’s Architectural Polychromy and Nineteenth-Century Color Theory.” Winterthur Portfolio 20:4 (Winter 1985), 243-260. WFT Architects. “New Capitol: Space Utilization.” Schematic drawings. May 2008. Whiffen, Marcus. American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969. Whiffen, Marcus, and Frederick Koeper. American Architecture 1607-1976. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981. Wilson, Richard Guy. McKim, Mead & White, Architects. New York: Rizzoli, 1983. Wilson, Richard Guy, et al. The American Renaissance, 1876-1917. New York: The Brooklyn Museum, 1979. Wintory, Blake “A Tale of Two Domes: Mississippi and Arkansas” (Part I). Preservation in Mississippi, August 22, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/08/22/architectural-twins-mississippi-and-arkansas-state-capitol- domes/. Wintory, Blake “A Tale of Two Domes, Part II.” Preservation in Mississippi, August 23, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/08/23/a-tale-of-two-domes-part-ii/. Wintory, Blake “A Tale of Two Domes, Part III.” Preservation in Mississippi, August 24, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/08/24/architectural-twins-mississippi-and-arkansas-state-capitol-domes-part- iii/. Wintory, Blake “A Tale of Two Domes, Finale” (Part IV). Preservation in Mississippi, August 25, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/08/25/architectural-twins-mississippi-and-arkansas-state-capitol-domes-part- iv/. Withey, Henry F., and Elise Rathburn Withey. Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased). Los Angeles : Hennessey and Ingalls, 1970. (Originally published 1956.)
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Previous documentation on file (NPS):
____ preliminary determination of individual listing (36 CFR 67) has been requested _X__ previously listed in the National Register ____ previously determined eligible by the National Register ____ designated a National Historic Landmark _X__ recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey #MS-191______recorded by Historic American Engineering Record # ______recorded by Historic American Landscape Survey # ______
Primary location of additional data: ____ State Historic Preservation Office _X__ Other State agency ____ Federal agency ____ Local government ____ University ____ Other Name of repository: Mississippi Department of Archives and History__
Historic Resources Survey Number (if assigned): 049-JAC-0001 NR, ML_____
______10. Geographical Data
Acreage of Property _11 acres______
Use either the UTM system or latitude/longitude coordinates
Latitude/Longitude Coordinates Datum if other than WGS84:______(enter coordinates to 6 decimal places) 1. Latitude: Longitude:
2. Latitude: Longitude:
3. Latitude: Longitude:
4. Latitude: Longitude:
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SEE CONTINUATION SHEET
Or UTM References Datum (indicated on USGS map):
NAD 1927 or NAD 1983
1. Zone: Easting: Northing:
2. Zone: Easting: Northing:
3. Zone: Easting: Northing:
4. Zone: Easting : Northing:
Verbal Boundary Description (Describe the boundaries of the property.)
Parcel 35-1 on Tax Map 688, in SE ¼, Sec. 3, T5N, R1E, Hinds County, Mississippi
Boundary Justification (Explain why the boundaries were selected.)
This is the entire parcel historically associated with the property.
______11. Form Prepared By
name/title: Richard J. Cawthon, consulting architectural historian______organization: ______street & number: P.O. Box 1108______city or town: Jackson ______State: ___MS______zip code:__39215-1108____ [email protected]______telephone:_601-206-9295______date: October 31, 2013______
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United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Mississippi State Capitol Hinds County (Additional Documentation) Mississippi Name of Property County and State
Additional Documentation
Submit the following items with the completed form:
• Maps: A USGS map or equivalent (7.5 or 15 minute series) indicating the property's location.
• Sketch map for historic districts and properties having large acreage or numerous resources. Key all photographs to this map.
• Additional items: (Check with the SHPO, TPO, or FPO for any additional items.)
Photographs Submit clear and descriptive photographs. The size of each image must be 1600x1200 pixels (minimum), 3000x2000 preferred, at 300 ppi (pixels per inch) or larger. Key all photographs to the sketch map. Each photograph must be numbered and that number must correspond to the photograph number on the photo log. For simplicity, the name of the photographer, photo date, etc. may be listed once on the photograph log and doesn’t need to be labeled on every photograph.
Photo Log
Name of Property: Mississippi State Capitol
City or Vicinity: Jackson
County: Hinds State: Mississippi
Photographer: Jennifer Baughn, Chief Architectural Historian Mississippi Department of Archives and History
Date Photographed: July 9 and 30, 2012
Description of Photograph(s) and number, include description of view indicating direction of camera:
1 of 40. Exterior. North elevation. Camera facing southeast. 2 of 40. Exterior. North elevation. Camera facing south. 3 of 40. Exterior. North elevation. Camera facing south. 4 of 40. Exterior. North elevation detail. Camera facing south. 5of 40. Exterior. South elevation. Camera facing north. 6 of 40. Interior. Rotunda. Camera facing north. 7 of 40. Interior. Rotunda. Camera facing up. 8 of 40. Interior. House Chamber entrance. Camera facing west. 9 of 40. Interior .House Chamber. Camera facing southeast. 10 of 40. Interior. House Chamber. Camera facing east.
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United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Mississippi State Capitol Hinds County (Additional Documentation) Mississippi Name of Property County and State
11 of 40. Interior. House Chamber. Camera facing west. 12 of 40. Interior. House Chamber. Camera facing up. 13 of 40. Interior. House Chamber. Camera facing east. 14 of 40. Interior. Senate Chamber entrance. Camera facing east. 15 of 40. Interior. Senate Chamber. Camera facing west. 16 of 40. Interior. Senate Chamber. Camera facing east. 17 of 40. Interior. Senate Chamber. Camera facing up. 18 of 40. Interior. Senate Chamber. Camera facing up. 19 of 40. Interior. Senate Chamber. Camera facing up. 20 of 40. Interior. Senate Chamber. Camera facing north. 21 of 40. Interior. Great Staircase. Camera facing north. 22 of 40. Interior. Great Staircase. Camera facing north. 23of 40. Interior. Great Staircase. Camera facing north. 24 of 40. Interior. Great Staircase. Camera facing north. 25 of 40. Interior. Great Staircase, Fourth floor. Camera facing north. 26 of 40. Interior. Great Staircase, Fourth floor. Camera facing southwest. 27 of 40. Interior. Stairs. Camera facing north. 28 of 40. Interior. Elevator. Camera facing north. 29 of 40. Interior. First Floor. Camera facing northwest. 30 of 40. Interior. Second floor corridor. Camera facing west. 31 of 40. Interior. Second floor corridor. Camera facing west. 32 of 40. Interior. Third floor corridor. Camera facing west. 33 of 40. Interior. Fourth floor corridor. Camera facing west. 34 of 40. Interior. Governor’s Office. Camera facing east. 35 of 40. Interior. Governor’s Office. Camera facing east. 36 of 40. Interior. Governor’s Office floor detail. Camera facing down. 37 of 40. Interior. Supreme Court Chamber entrance. Camera facing east. 38 of 40. Interior. Supreme Court Chamber. Camera facing east. 39 of 40. Interior. State Library. Camera facing west. 40 of 40. Interior. UDC Reception Room. Camera facing north.
Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: This information is being collected for applications to the National Register of Historic Places to nominate properties for listing or determine eligibility for listing, to list properties, and to amend existing listings. Response to this request is required to obtain a benefit in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended (16 U.S.C.460 et seq.). Estimated Burden Statement: Public reporting burden for this form is estimated to average 100 hours per response including time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining data, and completing and reviewing the form. Direct comments regarding this burden estimate or any aspect of this form to the Office of Planning and Performance Management. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 1849 C. Street, NW, Washington, DC.
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NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATION NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 PROPERTY NAME Page 1 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
1. NAME OF PROPERTY
Historic Name: MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL
Other Name/Site Number:
2. LOCATION
Street & Number: 400 Mississippi Street (north side of Mississippi Street, between West Street and President Street) Not for publication:
City/Town: Jackson Vicinity:
State: MS County: Hinds Code: 049 Zip Code: 39201
3. CLASSIFICATION
Ownership of Property Category of Property Private: Building(s): _X_ Public-Local: District: ___ Public-State: _X_ Site: ___ Public-Federal: ___ Structure: ___ Object: ___
Number of Resources within Property Contributing Noncontributing 1 buildings 1 sites structures 8 objects 2 8 Total
Number of Contributing Resources Previously Listed in the National Register: 2
Name of Related Multiple Property Listing: n/a
NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 2 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
4. STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATION
As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, I hereby certify that this _X__ nomination ____ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property _X_ meets ____ does not meet the National Register Criteria.
Signature of Certifying Official Date
State or Federal Agency and Bureau
In my opinion, the property ____ meets ____ does not meet the National Register criteria.
Signature of Commenting or Other Official Date
State or Federal Agency and Bureau
5. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE CERTIFICATION
I hereby certify that this property is:
___ Entered in the National Register ___ Determined eligible for the National Register ___ Determined not eligible for the National Register ___ Removed from the National Register ___ Other (explain):
Signature of Keeper Date of Action NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 3 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
6. FUNCTION OR USE
Historic: GOVERNMENT Sub: Capitol
Current: GOVERNMENT Sub: Capitol
7. DESCRIPTION
ARCHITECTURAL CLASSIFICATION: LATE 19TH & 20TH CENTURY REVIVALS Neoclassical Beaux-Arts
MATERIALS: Foundation: stone (granite), brick, concrete Walls: stone (limestone), brick Roof: metal, synthetics Other: terra cotta, concrete, glass
NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 4 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Describe Present and Historic Physical Appearance.
Setting The Mississippi State Capitol is located in the downtown district of Jackson, Mississippi, at the center of a large, park-like public square that occupies an eleven-acre tract equivalent to four city blocks, bounded by Mississippi Street on the south, High Street on the north, President Street on the east, and West Street on the west. This area, initially laid out as Squares 5 North, 6 North, 14 North, and 15 North of the original 1822 plat of Jackson, was formerly the site of the old state penitentiary, which was built from 1836 to 1840 (at the same time as the Old Capitol) on a design by William Nichols, the architect of the Old Capitol and the Governor’s Mansion. The penitentiary, a walled complex of brick buildings, was demolished in 1901 to clear the site for the construction of the new capitol. Facing the Capitol on the south and west are substantial institutional buildings, and on the west and north are state office buildings, dating mostly from the middle to late twentieth century.
The Capitol building occupies the exact center of its site, at what was specified to be the intersection of the continuations of the center lines of Congress Street and College Street. The building is aligned with the street grid, and it is therefore angled about ten degrees east of a true north-south alignment. The main façade of the building faces southward, toward Mississippi Street, and is centered on Congress Street, which extends to the south and resumes two blocks to the north. The lateral axis of the Capitol building is aligned with the center of College Street to the east, which does not continue west of the Capitol grounds.
Overall Composition and Exterior Extending 402 feet on its east-west axis and 225 feet on its north-south axis, the Mississippi State Capitol is a broad, symmetrical Classical Revival public building, four stories in height, with a lofty central dome. It has a composite structural system, consisting of a steel frame encased by brick walls, which are faced on the exterior by stone.
At first glance, the form of the building appears to be a symmetrical five-part composition, consisting of a square central block, surmounted by a dome, with two lateral wings and two end blocks which contain the two legislative chambers; but a more careful examination shows that the building has a more complex and more elegant shape, which could perhaps more accurately be described as a seven-part composition, in which the extreme ends are the semi-circular colonnaded apses. These apses are unique among existing state capitols, although the old Wisconsin state capitol (no longer extant) apparently had similar peristyles at its ends. The placement and proportion of these apses pick up the line of the primary lateral wall planes that extend between the center block and the projecting pavilions, carrying the wall line around to the other side of the building. This has the effect of enhancing the visual unity of the building. The apses also add to the unity of the design by echoing the form and detailing of the colonnaded drum of the dome. This arrangement gives the Mississippi State Capitol a compositional unity which is rare among domed capitol buildings.
The Mississippi capitol contains four full stories, plus a partial basement. In the original plans, what is now called the basement was identified as the “sub-basement.” The ground floor was originally referred to as the “basement” but is now called the first floor. Similarly, the main level of the building was originally referred to as the first floor, but it is now called the second floor, the second floor is now called the third floor, and the top attic story is now called the fourth floor. For consistency, the present-day floor numbering system is used in this document.
These various floor levels are articulated on the exterior of the building. Where the basement is visible on the exterior (in a light well at the west end and in three small exterior stairwells), it has walls of rough, rock-faced Georgia granite. The exterior walls above the basement are clad in warm-toned, light gray Bedford limestone NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 5 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
from Indiana.1 The walls of the first story are finished in rusticated blocks with deep channel joints. The second and third story walls are smooth blocks of coursed ashlar. At the top of the third story is a broad continuous entablature, above which are the ashlar walls of the fourth story.
The architectural character of the building is a rigorously disciplined and erudite form of Classical Revival, in the stylistic mode variously called the “Neo-Classical Revival” (Neoclassical Revival) or “Academic Roman Revival,” although it also contains features expressing some other stylistic influences, particularly in the interior, which combines the Neoclassical Revival and Beaux-Arts Classicism with some Art Nouveau and Prairie Style decorative elements.2
At the center of the symmetrical seven-part composition of the building is the main block, which is surmounted by the primary dome, raised upon a high drum that has an encircling colonnade of Corinthian columns. Atop each of the four corners of the central block is a decorative sculpted structure resembling a pedestal, topped by a spherical globe light. These elevated structures contribute to the compositional unity of the building by serving as visual anchors for the dome, providing an intermediary feature between the dome and the roof and relating the dome to the four corners of the center block.3 At either side of the central block, the wall planes step back slightly, forming the east and west wings and expressing the portion of the building which, on all four stories, contains rows of offices along either side of broad central corridors. At the outer ends of these office wings are secondary blocks that contain the chambers for the two houses of the Legislature, the Senate in the east and the House of Representatives in the west. These blocks are expressed externally by projecting pavilions, elaborated on the north and south façades by recessed monumental Corinthian tetrastyle porticoes. These secondary blocks are topped by low, shallow domes topped by skylights providing illumination for the legislative chambers below.4 Extending beyond the pavilions, at the east and west ends of the building, are the semi-circular colonnaded apses.
The most prominent feature of the Capitol is the dome, which is set upon a tall drum encircled by a colonnade of twenty-four Corinthian columns, supporting a balustrade. Piercing the wall of the drum behind the columns is a series of tall rectangular windows which illuminate the Rotunda below. The drum continues above the balustrade, where its wall is pierced by smaller rectangular windows which provide light to the space between the internal and external domes. The exterior of the dome is ribbed, and is surmounted by a lantern. The lantern is itself capped by a small dome, upon which is positioned a large sculpted eagle with outstretched wings, made of copper and covered in gold leaf.
At the center of the south façade of the building, a projection in the form of a classical temple extends forward from the square central block, culminating in a broad monumental prostyle portico, two stories in height,
1 Mississippi State House Commission, Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone of Mississippi’s New State House in the City of Jackson on June 3, 1903 (Jackson: Tucker Printing House, the Mississippi State House Commission, 1903),69; “The New Capitol,” in the State of Mississippi, Official and Statistical Register (1904), 207; and “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), 4. 2 Marcus Whiffen, in his widely-used American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), 166-171, uses the term “Neo-Classical Revival.” Alan Gowans, in Styles and Types of North American Architecture: Social Function and Cultural Expression (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 87, uses the term “Academic Roman Revival Style.” 3 These pedestal-like structures are analogous to the tourelles (so called by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale) at the four corners of the central block at the base of the dome of the Rhode Island State House (1895-1905), by McKim, Mead and White. See illustrations in Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale, Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), 221; Susan W. Thrane and Tom Patterson, State Houses: America’s 50 State Capitol Buildings (Erin, Ontario, Canada: Boston Mills Press, 2005), 148; and Richard Guy Wilson, McKim, Mead & White, Architects (New York: Rizzoli, 1983), 162. 4 These skylights are framed by an elaborate, self-draining system made of sheet copper and are supported by the steel structure. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 6 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
surmounted by a pediment with an elaborately sculpted tympanum that was designed by Robert P. Bringhurst of St. Louis. The portico is supported by six unfluted Corinthian columns and is approached by a broad, long ascent of granite steps which rises a full story in height. Within the portico are three double-leaf doors which have historically served as the main ceremonial entrance to the building, although this entrance is now used only on special occasions. (For security reasons, the primary south entrance into the building today is through the doors that open directly into the first story from a porte cochere located underneath the portico projection.) 5
On the north side of the building, a similar gable-roofed projection extends out from the central block, but it does not have a monumental portico. Instead, it opens to an upper terrace, from which two matching curved staircases descend to ground level. The usual north entrance to the building today, however, is a door at ground level, between the lower ends of the two staircases.
The monumental portico and its broad steps are the distinctive features of the south façade, and the gable-roofed projection, open terrace, and curved stairs are the distinctive features of the north façade; otherwise the two facades of the building are identically composed, so that the building is essentially symmetrical on both its north-south and its east-west axes.
The exterior of the building is unified by the exclusive use of the Corinthian order throughout. The six columns of the main portico, the four columns on each of the recessed porticoes of the secondary blocks, and the columns of the peristyle apses are all of the same size and appearance, and a continuous Corinthian entablature, with a modillion cornice, wraps the entire building. The columns of the dome are of the same order, but they are fluted, and they are smaller, helping to convey a sense of height.
Structural System The Capitol’s structural system consists of perimeter masonry bearing walls and an internal steel skeletal frame supporting floor and roof slabs. Today, some of this steel framing is original and some is replacement material installed in the restoration of 1979-82. The steel columns of the skeletal frame bear on the masonry foundation walls and piers just below the level of the first floor. Throughout the building’s main body, the steel frame utilizes a consistent palette of compound steel columns composed of plates, Z-bars and angles, riveted together. I-beams span between columns and support the Columbian floor system, patented by the Columbian Fire- proofing Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for constructing lightweight, fireproof floors in steel frame buildings. To reduce the loads carried by the steel structure, the concrete used for floor and roof slab construction contains lightweight coal cinders in lieu of stone aggregate. The steel columns are embedded within brick masonry walls and piers for fire protection.
The main dome is supported by the steel structural framework. The skirt, or base, of the dome and its colonnade are finished in limestone. The drum, the dome itself, and the lantern are clad in glazed terra cotta.6 The original terra cotta cupola above the lantern was replaced by a precast concrete replica in 1970.
Interior, First Floor As previously noted, the primary present-day south entrance to the building is through the doors that open directly into the first story from a porte cochere located underneath the portico projection. This opens into the
5 The inclusion of this porte cochere was one of the specific recommendations made by Bernard R. Green in his critique of Theodore Link’s original proposed design for the Mississippi Capitol in June 1900. Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 24 (Official Records Series 637, in the collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History). A similar porte cochere is located behind the front steps of the New York State Capitol (begun in 1867 and completed in 1899). 6 This description of the structural system of the Mississippi State Capitol has been abridged from a more thorough description written by Lawson Newman, AIA, of WFT Architects, Jackson, Mississippi, the project architect for exterior and structural repairs being made to the building beginning in the summer of 2014 and projected to be completed in 2016. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 7 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
periphery of the first-story level of the rotunda. This octagonal first-story “lower rotunda” is open to the main rotunda, on the story above, through a circular oculus in the ceiling, which is supported by four Tuscan columns made of iron. Extending northward from the first-story rotunda is a broad corridor leading to the lobby inside the north entrance. The north entrance lobby is notable because of its copper ceiling, an original waterproofing measure against leaks that might occur from the open terrace located directly above.
Because what is now considered the first story was originally regarded as a basement area, rather than a ceremonial space, its detailing and surface finishes are much simpler than those of the upper stories. This area has floors of plain encaustic tiles consisting of buff colored field tile overlaid with a diagonal grid of gray tile and bounded by a cream, red and black border. The wainscots of its walls are finished with glazed white “subway” tiles. (The actual tiles in this area are not original, but are reproductions, circa 1979-82, of the original tile surfaces.)7
Extending to the east and west from the “lower rotunda” are corridors lined with offices. Along the walls are portraits of Mississippi’s governors. At the end of the eastern corridor are two of the Capitol’s most distinctive and unusual smaller rooms. Directly at the end of the corridor is a broad circular room containing a peristyle of stout, unfluted Ionic columns, paired with pilasters around its perimeter. One lone column stands in the center, supporting the flat ceiling. The columns and pilasters are finished in scagliola. The wainscot is marble with a black marble baseboard and the upper wall is plaster. This room, located directly below the former Supreme Court Chamber, and two stories below the Senate Chamber, was originally designated as the Historical Hall, or Hall of History. It housed the Mississippi Department of Archives and History from 1903 until 1941. (Gradually, as the Department’s collections increased, exhibits expanded out of this room into the “basement” corridors and the lower rotunda.) 8
On either side of the Hall of History is a side corridor leading to matching vestibules containing side entrances at the northeast and southeast corners of the building. These vestibules have walls and floors of marble and glazed tile ceilings. Opening off the southeast vestibule is the other distinctive room – a small but richly detailed chamber with an apsidal north end. This room was originally designed to be a ladies’ reception room for the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). The wainscoting of its walls and the room’s two Corinthian columns are finished in Rose Claire scagliola, and the floor is decorated with a pattern of pink, white, and gray mosaic tile. Alcoves on the south side of the room have mirrors on their side walls to amplify the light from the windows and create a greater sense of spaciousness. The room is illuminated by two ornate hanging brass light fixtures and brass sconces along the walls. Both this room and the Hall of History are now used as committee rooms for the House of Representatives.9
In the north corners of the periphery of the lower rotunda are two elevators providing access to the upper stories. The carriages and mechanical systems themselves have been replaced, but there were elevators in these locations originally, installed by the Otis Elevator Company. Glass panels in the sides of the elevator carriages allow riders to see the white glazed tile walls and stained glass windows in the original elevator shafts.
A broad staircase, consisting of a cast iron structure and railings with marble steps, leads from the lower rotunda
7 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), 9. 8 Original architectural drawings for the Mississippi State Capitol, 1900, Sheet 3 (Mississippi State Building Commission files: “New Capitol Construction, Repairs, and Restoration, 1900-1982,” Official Records, Series 142, Box 5064, Mississippi Department of Archives and History); “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol,” 9; and “The New Capitol,” Official and Statistical Register (1908), 211. The original plans of the building, prepared in 1900, designated this space as the “Historical Hall,” even though the Mississippi Department of Archives and History was not established as a state agency until 1902. 9 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol,” 9; “The New Capitol,” Official and Statistical Register (1908), 211; and original architectural drawings for the Mississippi State Capitol, 1900, Sheet 3. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 8 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
to the story above. This staircase is positioned directly under the Grand Staircase that connects the upper stories, and it can therefore be considered the lowest portion of the Grand Staircase, although its materials and design differ from the upper staircase.
Interior, Second Floor The staircase from the first story ascends to a vestibule located just inside the northern entrance to the second story. This north entrance is reached, on the outside, from a second-story terrace with curved staircases on either side. (For reasons of security, however, the north second-story entrance and its adjacent terrace and exterior stairs are closed to the public and are seldom used.)
The north vestibule has walls and a ceiling of “blue” (actually gray) Vermont marble above a base of black Belgian marble. On the eastern side wall is a tablet inscribed with the names of the contractors and all their sub- contractors. (The materials and detailing of the northern vestibule match those of the larger and more ornate south vestibule, described later.)
Emerging into the second story from the elevators or from the north vestibule, one enters the north side of the main Rotunda. This vast central space is open to the inner dome high above. The walls and floor of the Rotunda are finished in gray-veined white Italian marble trimmed with black Belgian marble. In its four diagonal corners are huge pedestals that rise a full story in height. Set into the face of each pedestal is a white marble aedicule containing a statuary niche. Upon the pedestals are pairs of colossal Composite Order columns, finished in Pavanazzo scagliola, that support the drum of the dome. These columns have steel cores that are integral parts of the building’s structural frame. Balconies overlook the Rotunda on all sides from the upper floors.
The most surprising and distinctive aspect of the appearance of the Rotunda is its illumination by 750 exposed electric light bulbs. While this might seem strange to a viewer today when electric lighting is commonplace, when the Capitol was completed in 1903, electric lighting was a new and cutting-edge technological development. Link’s utilization of 4,750 electric lights throughout the building (a very great number of which are exposed bulbs) was a visual celebration of this new technology. This is shown in the minutes of the State House Commission, which recorded that the public was invited to view the spectacle of the illuminated capitol when the electric lights were first fully tested on the evening of September 3, 1903.10
Immediately south of the Rotunda on what is now called the second story is the vestibule of the historic main entrance to the building, opening from the front portico. The walls and ceiling of this vestibule are finished in “blue” Vermont marble above a base of black Belgian marble. In the east and west walls are large leaded art- glass windows. A plaque on the right-hand south-facing wall lists the members of the State House Commission who oversaw the construction of the Capitol; a matching plaque on the left-hand wall lists the names of the architect, the superintendent, and the contractors.
Extending eastward and westward from the Rotunda are broad corridors flanked by offices. In several of the state capitol buildings of this period, including the Minnesota and Arkansas capitols, the main lateral corridors are interrupted by staircases, but the main corridors of the Mississippi Capitol are uninterrupted axial thoroughfares on all four stories, providing a notable clarity to the interior plan. The corridors on the second floor are the most elaborately embellished in the building. Finished in white Italian marble with black Belgian marble trim, these corridors are lined with Doric pilasters edged with brass, and the beams that span the ceiling are finished as fully-detailed Doric entablatures.
At the end of the eastern second-story corridor is the entrance to the former Supreme Court Chamber. (The
10 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 582, 594. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 9 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Supreme Court relocated to the Gartin Justice Building in 1972, and more recently to the new Supreme Court Building, located north of the Capitol across High Street.) It is entered through an elaborate tripartite, pedimented marble frontispiece supported by Tuscan columns, which opens into a lobby that has wall surfaces similar to the corridor, and a patterned mosaic tile floor. Beyond the lobby is the Supreme Court Chamber itself. This room features a semi-circular rear wall which is positioned within the apse at the east end of the building. The walls of this room are finished in Pavanazzo scagliola with wainscoting of Georgia Verde Antique marble. The peripheral columns and other detailing of this room are in the Greek Doric order, finished in scagliola. A curved wooden balustrade separates the spectators’ area from the formal court space. The floor of the spectator's area is surfaced with patterned hexagonal mosaic tile, including a large “M” centered near the entrance. Beyond the balustrade, the formal court space is surfaced with tongue and groove, white oak strip flooring. The justices’ bench and the balustrade were made by the Wollaeger Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This room is now used as a Senate committee room.
At the end of the western corridor of the second story is the suite of rooms formerly occupied by the State Law Library. (The library also relocated to the Gartin Justice Building in 1972, and more recently to the new Supreme Court Building.) It is entered through a pedimented marble frontispiece identical in design to the entrance to the Supreme Court Chamber. Just inside this entrance is a lobby that connects at the south to the former Reading Room and at the north to a room that originally contained a reference area and the librarian’s office. These rooms now serve as committee meeting rooms for the House of Representatives. Between these two rooms, separated from the lobby by an arched wall containing the library’s service counter, is the area that formerly contained the library stacks. This area now contains offices and small meeting rooms.
To the north of the Rotunda is the Grand Staircase. This elaborate marble staircase, embellished with carved marble consoles, ascends to the third and fourth stories. The half-story landing between the second and third stories is the location of one of the Capitol’s most dramatic features – a three-panel set of brilliantly colored stained glass windows, made by the studio of Louis J. Millet of Chicago. The center panel shows the image of a woman, symbolizing Mississippi, holding a book and a sword. In the left panel is the image of an American Indian, and in the right is the image of a pioneer settler. One story above this, the upper half-story landing of the Grand Staircase has a vaulted ceiling with elaborate plaster decorations, and the balustrade is adorned with marble lions’ heads.
Interior, Third Floor The third story of the Capitol (originally the second floor) is the location of the Legislative chambers and the Governor’s Office suite. An ascent of the Grand Staircase, past the stained glass windows on its first landing, leads to the second level of the main Rotunda, where the central open space is surrounded by iron balconies overlooking the floor of the Rotunda below.
Opposite the Grand Staircase, on the south side of the Rotunda, is the Governor’s Office suite. These rooms, which occupy the area directly over the original main lobby, are now used as a ceremonial office for the Governor, whose working offices are now located in the Walter Sillers Building nearby. Within this area is the ceremonial Governor’s Office itself, which was historically referred to as the Governor’s Reception Room. This elaborate chamber has a particularly fine marble mosaic floor laid in the style of Ancient Rome. The dado along the lower walls is finished in dark green marble. The two elaborate French Renaissance style mantels were originally probably made of the same marble, but those mantels had been removed at some time prior to the 1970s. They were replicated during the restoration of 1979-82, but replacement in marble was cost-prohibitive, so they were reproduced in wood and painted to simulate a dark marble.11 The most impressive feature of the
11 Kenneth H. P’Pool, Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer, email communication with Lawson Newman of WFT Architects, project architect, October 29, 2013. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 10 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form room, however, it its vaulted ceiling with ornate plaster moldings. In 1930, some alterations to the Governor’s Office were made under the direction of architect Vinson B. Smith, Jr. At that time, elaborate panels were installed at each end of the vault, adorned with heraldic griffins executed in plaster.12
To the east and west of the Rotunda are broad corridors flanked by offices. The corridors on this floor are finished in Rose Claire scagliola framed in greenish-gray Champagne scagliola, with wainscoting of Georgia Verde Antique marble and bases and door surrounds of Belgian black marble or matching material.13 At regular intervals along the corridors are fluted Ionic pilasters that match the wainscoting. In the ceilings of the third story corridors are stained glass panels that are illuminated through glass blocks set into the floor of the story above, transmitting light from the skylights that illuminate the fourth story corridors.
Facing each other at the opposite ends of the third-story corridors are the entrances to the legislative chambers. These entrances are identical in design, each consisting of an elaborate frontispiece of Georgia Verde Antique marble composed as a variation of a Serliana or Palladian arch with Ionic columns and pilasters.
The entrance to the Senate Chamber, at the end of the eastern third-story corridor, opens into a lobby with walls of white Italian marble, trimmed with grayish-pink Tennessee marble bases and deeper red Knoxville marble door surrounds, and a patterned mosaic tile floor. At the center of the east wall is a set of three round-arched art- glass windows above a built-in wooden bench resembling a church pew. At the north and south ends of this lobby are doors entering into the Senate Chamber itself.
The Senate Chamber is one of the Capitol’s most ornate rooms. It is two-stories in height with an apsidal east end. The room is entered through doors on the west wall at either side of the podium. The curved east wall, with two tiers of windows, forms the rear of the room. The square windows of the upper tier contain stained glass in a Prairie Style pattern. Over the room is a broad dome containing a skylight consisting of twelve stained-glass panels in a sinuous Art Nouveau pattern surrounding a circular center panel. Along the north and south walls of the chamber are monumental Corinthian columns of violet Breccia scagliola. The walls are finished in panels of Pavanazzo scagliola framed by St. Baum scagliola, with Egyptian scagliola wainscoting. Overlooking the room on the north, south, and west sides are visitors’ galleries. The wooden President’s podium and the matching clerk’s desk below it were made by the Wollaeger Company.
At the end of the western corridor of the third story is the entrance to the House of Representatives Chamber. The corridor is shorter in this wing because of the larger size of the House Chamber. Immediately within the entrance is a lobby with walls of Tennessee Pink marble trimmed with Knoxville marble and a patterned mosaic tile floor.
At the north and south ends of this lobby are doors leading into the House Chamber itself. This huge room is two-stories in height with an apsidal west end at the rear, opposite the Speaker’s podium. Spanning the room is a broad dome, much larger than the Senate dome. At the top of the dome is a skylight containing eight stained- glass panels in a sinuous Art Nouveau pattern surrounding a circular center panel, somewhat resembling the stained-glass panels in the Senate dome, but much larger and with a different design. The dome is enriched with ornate plaster and pressed sheet metal moldings and is lit by exposed electric lights. Unlike the Senate Chamber, this room does not have columns along its side walls. Instead, the walls of the chamber curve inward at the gallery level to become part of the dome itself, with the visitors’ galleries and the western apse opening
12 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol,” 11-12. 13 The term “Champagne” here refers to the type of the scagliola, replicating a type of marble, which has a greenish-gray color; and does not indicate a light grayish-gold color, as the word is commonly used today. In some locations, such as certain door surrounds, black-glazed terra cotta or black slate was used in place of black marble. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 11 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
from it through broad round arches. The walls of the chamber are finished in Sienna scagliola with wainscoting of Belgian black marble. The broad semicircular wall on the west end of the room has two tiers of windows. The arched windows of the upper tier contain Prairie Style art glass panels. At the eastern end of the chamber is an elaborate three-tiered wooden Speaker’s podium made by the Wollaeger Company.
Interior, Fourth Floor14 The fourth story is arranged similarly to the third story, with wide corridors, lined with offices, extending to the east and west of the Rotunda. At the ends of the corridors are the entrances to the visitors’ galleries overlooking the Senate and House chambers. The fourth story corridor ceilings contain stained glass panels which are illuminated by skylights above. The light from these skylights is transmitted to the corridors of the third story, below, through glass blocks set into the fourth-story floor. The glass blocks are arrayed in rectangular panels set into the marble mosaic floor. 15
The fourth-story balcony overlooking the Rotunda is an excellent vantage point for observing the interior of the dome and its drum. The drum contains twenty tall-slender clear glass windows framed by Roman lattice grilles. At four points, above the four pairs of colossal columns below, are solid panels embellished with painted roundels that date to the building’s 1934 Civil Works Administration painting project. The four painted panels and twenty columns are aligned with the twenty-four columns that encircle the exterior of the drum. Above the drum, the curved sides of the dome are adorned by ribbed panels enriched by moldings. At the apex of the dome is an oculus illuminated by the cupola above.
Interior Features Located Throughout the Building Among the notable features of the Capitol are the many fine examples of stained glass and other types of decorative architectural glass, showing several different stylistic influences, primarily Art Nouveau and Prairie Style. The art glass throughout the building was designed by the studio of Louis J. Millet of Chicago. The Mississippi State Capital contains a significantly large and intact collection of Millet’s art glass.
Marble is used extensively throughout the Capitol, for floors in some areas; for walls in the Rotunda, the main corridors, and the vestibules; for wainscoting in much of the rest of the building; for baseboards and door surrounds; and even for some ceilings. According to the specifications for the building as shown in minutes of the State House Commission, at least eleven different types of marble were specified. In addition, marble mosaic tiles are used in the floors of the Governor’s Reception Room and the fourth-story corridors. The sub- contractor for the marble and mosaic work was the N. O. Nelson Manufacturing Company of St. Louis.16
Another notable aspect of the design is the extensive use of scagliola, or “art marble,” which was used instead of marble in many places throughout the Capitol, particularly for the finishes of columns and upper wall surfaces. The use of scagliola allowed the steel piers supporting the dome in the rotunda to be encased within huge Corinthian columns, enabling an integration of the structural system and aesthetic monumentality that would not have been possible otherwise.17 The scagliola work in the Mississippi Capitol is believed to be among the finest and most extensive in the United States. The scagliola was installed by the Art Marble
14 The fourth story was originally called the attic floor, but the term was used in its classical sense, to refer to the top story of a classical building, above the line of the cornice, and not in the modern sense denoting a storage space tucked under the roof. 15 The inclusion of skylights over these corridors and “floor lights” to illuminate the corridors below were specific recommendations made by Bernard R. Green in his critique of Link’s original proposed design in June 1900. Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 24. 16 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, 74. 17 The structural advantages of scagliola in certain architectural uses are pointed out by Monica T. Price in The Sourcebook of Decorative Stone: An Illustrated Identification Guide (Buffalo, N.Y.: Firefly Books, 2007), 84. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 12 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Company of Chicago.18
As mentioned earlier, in the description of the Rotunda, one of the most surprising and distinctive aspects of the interior of the Capitol is the presence of hundreds of exposed electric light bulbs. These can be seen not only in the Rotunda, but also in the Senate Chamber, the House Chamber, the Hall of History, and other prominent locations throughout the building.
Historical Integrity of the Mississippi State Capitol The Mississippi State Capitol possesses an exceptionally high degree of historical integrity in all respects: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. The exterior of the building and the major architecturally significant spaces of the interior are original and unchanged in their design, materials, and workmanship, although the private office areas of the building have been reworked to make more efficient use of these spaces for legislative offices. The building has undergone very few changes since its construction. The degree of integrity both inside and out can be readily ascertained by comparing the present appearance of the building to the construction plans of December 1900 and to early photographs, particularly a set of photographs of the building made at the time of it completion in 1903.19
Its few changes have mostly been either upgrades to its utilities or alterations within the private office areas, with the exception of two notable projects undertaken in the 1930s: a relatively minor remodeling of the Governor’s Office in 1930, and a program of interior painting conducted in 1934-35. Neither of these alterations diminishes the architectural integrity of the interior or detracts from the original character-defining features of the building.
The remodeling in the Governor’s office suite was done during the administration of Governor Theodore Bilbo, under the direction of architect Vinson B. Smith, Jr. of Gulfport. As a part of that project, two semicircular tympanums adorned with heraldic griffins were added to the already elaborate plaster ceilings in the Governor’s Office. These tympanums remain in place today.20
The other change to the original appearance in the 1930s was a program of interior painting done in 1934-35, under the auspices of the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and supervised by the architectural firm of Overstreet and Town. The complete extent of this painting program is not well documented, but it included the creation of the four circular paintings of stylized historical subjects located within the drum of the dome, on the panels positioned above the paired columns in the four corners of the rotunda, and also some additional decorative painting on the ceilings of the House and Senate Chambers.
While the interior plaster was left mostly in its natural state at the time the building opened in 1903, this appears to have been a cost-saving measure rather than a specific design choice. Several commentators at the time the building opened expressed a desire to have the interior painted when funds allowed. Link himself may have
18 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, 74. 19 Although the original ink drawings are not known to survive, nor any actual blueprints from the time of construction, a mostly-complete set of xerographic copies of the construction plans is filed in “Mississippi State Building Commission files: New Capitol Construction, Repairs, and Restoration, 1900-1982,” Official Records, Series 142, in the archival collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. A set of copies of the photographs made in 1903 is filed in the “Capitols” photograph collection (Collection PI/STR/36), items 448-494, in the archival collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. This collection of photographs can also be viewed on-line though the Mississippi Department of Archives and History web site. 20 “New Offices To Afford Privacy.” Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi), October 15, 1930; “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), 12; and Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Historic Preservation Division. Historic Resources Inventory Database. Artisan files. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 13 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
overseen the first painting project when he served as supervising architect for the State Bond Improvement Commission from 1920 until his death in 1923. A project completed under this commission in 1922 consisted of “painting, overhauling the heating system, repairs to plumbing, replacing the tile floor on the North Terrace, and miscellaneous minor repairs.” The extent of painting under this project is also not fully understood.21 It seems clear though that the 1934 CWA-funded decorative painting was consistent with Link’s original intent, and it was harmonious with the rich coloration of the marbles, scagliola, art glass, and original painting throughout the building.22
During the 1950s and 1960s, various superficial modifications were made to the interior of the Mississippi Capitol, mostly in an effort to more fully utilize office space within the building. By the 1970s, the building was showing its age. The original steam heating system was still in use, and the electrical and telephone systems were woefully inadequate. The office areas were congested mazes of temporary partitions and dropped ceilings. These areas were largely out of public sight, however, for the Rotunda, the corridors, and the Legislative chambers still retained their historic appearance.23
A study was commissioned by the state legislature in 1972 to examine the condition of the Capitol and to make recommendations for repairs and renovations. After several years, a thorough renovation of the Capitol was initiated in 1977. The project, which was to include renovation of the office areas and restoration of the major historic interiors, was planned and carried out by a consortium of firms, bringing together architects, engineers, landscape architects, and interior designers. William Seale, a respected architectural historian and co-author of Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A., served as a consultant to the project. Work on the project began in July 1979, and was completed in 1982. The building was rededicated on June 3, 1983, eighty years after the original dedication ceremony. The building is open regularly to the public for tours.
The Capitol Grounds The eleven-acre park-like setting of the Capitol building is considered a contributing historic landscape. The grounds consist of a slightly-terraced lawn with numerous large shade trees, many of which were planted during the original landscaping of the grounds at the time the Capitol was built. The original landscape included a winding drive that ran from the southeast corner of the grounds, around the south front of the Capitol, and curved around the west end to the north side, where it split, one branch circling back around to the front of the building to afford access to the porte cochere behind the front steps, and the other branch curving northeastward to connect to High Street at the northeast corner of the grounds. This northeastern branch of the drive was mirrored by a curved walkway that extended from the north face of the capitol to the northwest corner of the grounds. Besides these, there were also straight axial walkways extending north and south from the main north and south entrances to the building, aligned with Congress Street, and a peripheral walkway around the building itself. Altogether, the Mississippi State Capitol and its associated site comprise an ensemble consisting of one building, one contributing historic landscape, and eight non-contributing objects (three monuments, two
21 Wilbur Trueblood, Acting Supervising Architect, “Report of the Supervising Architect” (December 31, 1923), in Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission, Final Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission (1924), Official Records Series 669, Mississippi Department of Archives and History; and State Bond Improvement Commission, “Building Project Files and Correspondence, 1919-1924,” Official Records Series 666, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 22 “A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (2013), 3, 7-8. There are several photographs, dated December 26, 1934, showing scaffolding for this work in place in the Rotunda. These photographs are cataloged as PI/STR/C36 (the “Capitols” collection), items no. 333 through 339, in the photograph collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Some of this work is described in “New Capitol Cleaned Up, CWA Workers Repair Structure, First Time in 30 Years,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi), March 26, 1934, 12. 23 Records documenting many of the minor alterations to office areas are filed in the records of the Mississippi State Building Commission (later Mississippi Bureau of Building, Grounds, and Real Property Management), “Contract Files. 1952-1963,” Official Records Series 1542, and “Project Files. 1942-1971,” Official Records Series 1646, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 14 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
flagstaffs, two field guns, and one historic marker).
Although the records of the Capitol’s construction indicate that Granitoid paving was originally installed by Charles A. Babst of New Orleans, detailed examination of early photographs and careful reading of the Minutes and the Final Report of the State House Commission indicate that this paving was limited to walkways only, specifically the axial walkways aligned with Congress Street on the north and south sides, and with College Street on the east, and that the serpentine drive was not paved at that time, but instead was surfaced with a granular material, probably crushed stone, and bordered with stone curbs.24 The drives are believed to have been resurfaced with a hard pavement in the 1930s. At some later time, apparently in the 1960s, the walkways on the north side of the building were widened to become part of the system of driveways, to provide space for additional parking. During the rehabilitation of the Capitol between 1979 and 1982, the system of driveways was resurfaced with exposed aggregate concrete (retaining the early stone curbing), and was slightly reconfigured to close off the northeastern opening to High Street, moving the north entrance of the drive to the center of the north side of the grounds (where the former straight axial walkway on the north side had connected to High Street), and shifting the south opening of the drive away from the southeast corner of the grounds to a new position slightly further to the west on Mississippi Street. (The purpose of these most recent changes was to provide better traffic flow by not having the drive connect to the surrounding streets exactly at the street corners.)
The overall landscape plan of Capitol grounds is therefore relatively unchanged from its original design, for the expansion of the system of drives consisted largely of widening existing walkways on the north side of the building to convert them to driveways, and later shifting the positions at which the ends of the drives open to the adjacent streets. The tree canopy has grown substantially from its early appearance, but that is because the trees themselves have grown, which was undoubtedly in keeping with the intent of the original landscape design.
Individual Features on the Capitol Grounds Located on the grounds of the Mississippi State Capitol are several notable commemorative objects, most of which are considered to be contributing elements of the Capitol as it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but because they date from after the period of construction of the Capitol, they are not considered to be contributing elements of the National Historic Landmark designation.
The Prow Ornament of the Second USS Mississippi. (one noncontributing object) (permanently placed on the Capitol grounds circa 1914)
Located on the Capitol grounds, at the eastern edge of the parking area immediately north of the building, is a monument consisting of the prow ornament of an early twentieth century battleship, the second U.S.S. Mississippi, mounted on a concrete base.
The USS Mississippi (BB-23) was launched in 1905 and formally commissioned in 1908. At the time of its commissioning it was adorned with an elaborate prow (or bow) ornament (also referred to as figurehead). At the end of the nineteenth century and into the earliest years of the twentieth century, most of the larger vessels of the U.S. Navy had ornaments of this type, which could be removed when a ship was prepared for combat. In
24 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 547; and “Report of the State House Commission of Mississippi to the Legislature of the State of Mississippi, 1904” Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Mississippi, 1904 (Nashville, Tenn.: Brandon Printing Co., 1904), 44. The surface material of the drive is clearly visible in a photograph of the Capitol made circa 1918, in the Daniel, Al Fred, Photograph Collection, PI/1999.001, item no. 50, in the Mississippi Department of Archives and History photograph collections. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 15 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
1909, however, an order was issued by Secretary of the Navy George Mayer requiring that these ornaments be removed from all Navy ships.
The Mississippi made a visit to Pascagoula, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, in 1909, at which time Governor Edmund P. Noel, on behalf of the state, presented a magnificent silver service to the ship. Evidently he learned, about that time, that the bow ornament had been removed, or was soon to be removed, for in August of that year he requested that the figurehead be lent to the state to be placed on display at the Capitol. The ornament was sent to Mississippi by rail from the Philadelphia Navy Yard in December of 1909. About six months after its arrival, it was mounted on a temporary stand and placed on display at the Capitol. Several years later, in 1914, the ship (which had been rendered essentially obsolete soon after its construction by British developments in warship design) was decommissioned and sold to Greece. At about that time, the prow ornament of the Mississippi was permanently affixed to a concrete base and placed on display on the Capitol grounds, where it remains today.25
The Monument to the Women of the Confederacy. (one noncontributing object) (completed in1917)
Located in the center of the paved walkway directly in front of the Capitol, on the south side of the grounds, the Monument to the Women of the Confederacy is an elegant bronze sculpture portraying a woman attending a wounded soldier while a second woman places a wreath upon her head. The sculpture is raised upon a tall base of carved stone, with inscriptions on each of its four sides, honoring the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of the men who fought for the Confederacy. The cornerstone for the monument was laid in 1912, and the bronze sculpture, designed by noted sculptor Belle Kinney and cast by Tiffany Studios, was made and installed in 1917.26
Flagstaffs. (two noncontributing objects) (placed on the Capitol grounds in 1922)
Two flagstaffs, located on either side of the front approach to the Capitol, were purchased and erected in 1922 under the auspices of the State Bond Improvement Commission. The 80-foot poles were manufactured by the Pole & Tube Works, Inc., of Newark, New Jersey.27 The particular significance of these flagpoles is that they were purchased under the direction of Theodore C. Link, while he was the supervising architect for the State Bond Improvement Commission. They are the only visible features related to Link’s second period of association with the Capitol.
The flags of the United States and the State of Mississippi are flown from these two flagstaffs year-round. (There are also flagpoles on the domes over the House and Senate chambers on the Capitol building, but flags are only flown atop the Capitol when the Legislature is in session.)
German field howitzers from World War I. (two noncontributing objects) (placed on the Capitol grounds in 1925)
25 Documentation, including a xerographic copy of an article, “Monument to an Old Battleship,” Ships and the Sea Quarterly (Winter 1958), 47, filed in the Subject File “Mississippi, U.S.S. (2nd) (1905),” Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The second USS Mississippi, after having been sold to Greece in 1914, was renamed the Kilkis. She was sunk in an attack by German aircraft during the German invasion of Greece in World War II. A new USS Mississippi (BB-41), the third ship to bear that name, was commissioned in 1917 and saw service in the Second World War. 26 Subject file, “Monument to the Women of the Confederacy,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History; and Elise L. Smith, “Belle Kinney and the Confederate Women’s Monument,” Southern Quarterly 32:4 (Summer 1944): 6-31. 27 Records of the State Bond Improvement Commission, Old Capitol file, Series 666. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 16 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Located near the flagstaffs in front of the Capitol building are two German field guns from World War I. Both are examples of the 150-millimeter heavy field howitzer, model 13 (15cm schwere Feldhaubitze 13). They represent two variations of the design, one having a longer barrel than the other. The two field guns are war trophies from the First World War that were allocated to the State of Mississippi by the federal government in 1924. They were placed on the grounds of the Capitol in 1925.28
Liberty Bell replica. (one noncontributing object) (placed on the Capitol grounds in 1950)
In 1950, as part of a national Savings Bond drive, each state and territory of the Union was presented with a full-size, functional replica of the Liberty Bell, commissioned by the U.S. Treasury Department but paid for by private contributions. The bells were cast at the Paccard Foundry in Annecy-le-Vieux, France. Mississippi’s Liberty Bell was presented to the state on July 4, 1950.29 It is displayed at the front of the main entrance walk on the south side of the Capitol Grounds. Identical replicas of the Liberty Bell, presented to other states and territories at this same time, have been placed on public display at or near numerous other state capitols, including the capitols of Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Oregon, and South Dakota.
Freedom Trail Marker (one noncontributing object) (placed on the Capitol grounds in 2015)
In 2015, this marker was erected as part of the Mississippi Freedom Trail to commemorate the “March Against Fear,” which began in Memphis and ended at the Mississippi State Capitol on June 26, 1966. After James Meredith, who had begun the march, was shot just outside of Memphis, other civil rights leaders took up the march and brought it all the way to Jackson, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, and Floyd McKissick. State officials arranged for marchers to amass at the back (north) side of the Capitol, where they listened to speakers and sang freedom songs. The crowd, around 15,000, is estimated to have constituted the largest civil rights demonstration in Mississippi’s history.
28 Biennial Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Mississippi for the Years 1924-1925, 57-58 and 68. The report specifically mentions two 150-mm howitzers that were to be placed on the grounds of the New Capitol. 29 “State Accepts Liberty Bell in Formal Ceremony,” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), July 5, 1950. A xerographic copy of that article is filed, along with other information, in the Subject file, “Liberty Bell,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 17 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
8. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties: Nationally: X Statewide: Locally:__
Applicable National Register Criteria: A B C X D___
Criteria Considerations (Exceptions): A B C D E F G __
NHL Criteria: Criterion 4
NHL Criteria Exceptions: n/a
NHL Theme(s): III. Expressing Cultural Values 5. architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design
Areas of Significance: Architecture
Period(s) of Significance: 1900-1903
Significant Dates: June 3, 1903 (laying of cornerstone and dedication)
Significant Person(s): n/a
Cultural Affiliation: n/a
Architect/Builder: Link, Theodore C., architect Wells, W.A. and A.E. (Wells Brothers Co.), general contractor
Some others involved in the design and construction: Barnes, J.F., superintendent for the State House Commission Bringhurst, Robert P., sculptor Dugan, George, stone contractor Grieve, A.R., sculptor Green, Bernard R., consultant to the State House Commission Millet, Louis J., art glass contractor Art Marble Co., scagliola Schlader, Theodore H., contractor’s superintendent
Historic Contexts: NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 18 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
State Significance of Property, and Justify Criteria, Criteria Considerations, and Areas and Periods of Significance Noted Above.
Introduction The Mississippi State Capitol, designed by Theodore C. Link of St. Louis and built from 1901 to 1903, is nationally significant under National Historic Landmark Criterion 4, as an exceptionally fine example of Academic Classical Revival architecture, providing a remarkably vivid illustration of the nationwide spread of Academic Classicism following the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. It is particularly notable among state capitol buildings for its unity of design and construction, having been built by a single general contracting firm, under the direction of a single architect, within a single three-year program of construction. It was completed before any of the other state capitols that are important examples of American Academic Classicism. The building is notable as well for its large and important collection of art glass by Louis J. Millet, and for its extensive use of scagliola (art marble). In addition, the Mississippi State Capitol is remarkable for the degree to which it embraced and exhibited the latest technical developments of its time, most vividly evident in its thousands of prominently exposed electric light bulbs, making a clear statement of modernity in the rural South at the dawn of the twentieth century.
Its period of significance corresponds to the span of years of its design and construction, from 1900 to 1903. Although it is unusual for a period of significance to begin before the actual start of construction of the building, in this case it is important because it shows the early date of the formulation of this design in relation to other major examples of Academic Classical architecture and to other comparable state capitols in particular; because it demonstrates the swiftness with which the complex plan was created and subsequently executed; and because it encompasses the important contributions of Bernard R. Green in the selection of the architect and the refinement of the design.
Historical Background: Jackson as the State Capital and the Old Capitol When the State of Mississippi was established in 1817, much of its land area, particularly in the central and northern parts of the state, was under the control of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians. The state government met first at Natchez and then, temporarily, at Columbia while a commission sought a suitable location for a permanent capital near the center of the state. In 1822, the legislature approved the recommended location and had a plat drawn up for a town named for General Andrew Jackson. The legislature convened in December of that year in a temporary brick statehouse that was used for the next seventeen years.30
In 1833, the Mississippi Legislature authorized funding “for the erection of a State House and suitable offices for the secretary of state, state treasurer, auditor of public accounts, and attorney general, therein.” 31 The construction of a state capitol having a Gothic architectural character was begun in 1834 under the direction of architect John Lawrence; however, his work was found to be unsatisfactory. The government dismissed Lawrence and replaced him with William Nichols, who had been the architect of state capitols in North Carolina and Alabama. Nichols developed a new Greek Revival design, construction began in 1836, the building was complete enough for the legislature to meet there in 1839, and the building was finished the following year.32
30 Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol, 7-11. 31 Ibid., 21. 32 Ibid., 22-25. After the completion of the Capitol in 1903, the Old Capitol was largely abandoned and fell into disrepair. It was renovated in 1916-17 to become a state office building and renovated again in 1959-61 to become the State Historical Museum. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. The Old Capitol suffered serious damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and subsequently underwent an extensive restoration from 2006 to 2009. The building serves today as the Old Capitol Museum, administered by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 19 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
The antebellum capitol was not significantly harmed during the Civil War, but the building suffered from poor and deferred maintenance. It underwent an extensive renovation in 1870-71. Following these renovations, it continued to serve as the state capitol for another thirty-two years. Over that period, however, the building suffered increasingly severe problems from insufficient maintenance and from some inherent structural weaknesses in the design.33
By the mid-1890s, the building was in very poor condition, and it was much too small to meet the needs of the state government. In 1896 the Legislature began to consider proposals for erecting a new capitol building. A proposal made in 1897 to erect a new capitol (designed by James Riely Gordon) was vetoed by Governor Anselm J. McLaurin, but the idea of building a new capitol continued to gain support for the next several years. In 1900, under the leadership of newly-elected Governor Andrew H. Longino, the legislature passed “an act to create a State House Commission, to secure drawings, plans, and specifications for, and to authorize and provide for the building and erection of a State House.” The building that was subsequently erected is the present Mississippi State Capitol.34
The Design and Construction of the “New” Mississippi State Capitol, 1900-1903 When the Mississippi Legislature passed the authorization for the design and construction of a new capitol, it included a provision allowing the governor to issue bonds for up to one million dollars to fund the project. However, before the bonds could be issued, they suddenly became unnecessary. Not long before, the State of Mississippi had filed suit against the Illinois Central Railroad and two of its subsidiaries, the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad and the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad, to claim unpaid taxes in the amount of $1,000,000. This lawsuit eventually led to an appeal which was considered by the United States Supreme Court. The case was heard before the court in October 1900, and a decision in favor of the State of Mississippi was issued on January 7, 1901.35 The Legislature subsequently allocated the proceeds from the settlement of the lawsuit to the new capitol project, with the result that there was no need to issue the bonds. Funding for the construction of the new capitol came almost entirely from the settlement of the lawsuit. 36
The site selected for the new capitol building was the four-block area that was occupied at that time by the old state penitentiary. The Legislature had been intending to close the antiquated prison for some time, and using its site would provide more space than the site of the Old Capitol and would also allow the Old Capitol to remain in use while the New Capitol was being built.
The legislation of 1900 created a State House Commission, with Governor Longino as its ex officio president. The commission promptly began its work, holding its first meeting on April 7, 1900. Prior to this meeting, in accordance with the legislation, the Governor had already arranged for advertisements requesting design proposals from interested architects. Architects were invited to submit proposals for what was, in effect, an
33 Ibid., 85-107, and Richard J. Cawthon, “Comprehensive Historical Report on the Architectural History of the Old Mississippi State Capitol and the Restoration of 2005-2008, Part I: Architectural History” (unpublished report prepared for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 2009), Section A-2. 34 Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol, 107-111; and Robert J. Bailey, a history of the Mississippi State Capitol (unpublished draft manuscript prepared for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 2004), 9-20. The proposal to erect a new capitol building in 1897 and its subsequent veto are discussed in detail in Chris Meister, James Riely Gordon: His Courthouses and Other Public Architecture (Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press, 2011), 145-148. 35 “Yazoo & Mississippi Railroad Company, Pltffs., in Err., v. Wirt Adams,” in The Supreme Court Reporter, vol. 21 (November 1900-July 1901) (St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1901), 240 ff. 36 The cost of the actual construction of the building was paid entirely from the proceeds of the lawsuit, but some additional costs associated with earthmoving and some later costs for furnishings were paid using other state funds. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 20 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form architectural competition to select a project architect.37
Fourteen architectural firms submitted preliminary proposals: 1. Moad & Bramlet, of Dallas, Texas 2. E.E. Meyers, of Detroit, Michigan 3. J.W. Gaddis, of Vincennes, Indiana 4. Bruce & Morgan, of Atlanta, Georgia 5. Theodore C. Link, of St. Louis, Missouri 6. Weathers & Weathers, of Memphis, Tennessee 7. H. Wolters, of Louisville, Kentucky 8. George R. Mann, of Little Rock, Arkansas 9. James B. Cook, of Memphis, Tennessee 10. Bryan & Gilbert, of Atlanta, Georgia 11. J. Riely Gordon, of Dallas, Texas 12. Alfred Zucker, of New York, New York. 13. G.W. Bunting, of Indianapolis, Indiana 14. E.O. Murdock & Company, of Omaha, Nebraska 38
Faced with the difficult choice of selecting between these proposals, the commission decided to seek professional advice. They hired Bernard R. Green, the superintendent of construction for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., to serve as a consultant. He was asked to examine all the proposals and to make recommendations to the commission. Green met with the commission on June 7, 1900, and began his examination of the plans, which were presented to him with the names of the submitters hidden, the plans being identified only by number, from 1 to 14. He completed his examination of the plans and made his report to the commission on June 11.39 In his report, Green prefaced his comments about the specific proposed designs with some general observations about the design of capitol buildings, noting that “the object and function of a State Capitol are mainly to furnish accommodations of due dignity and convenience for the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of the Government and the building should be so designed as to give architectural prominence and expression to this trinity of objects and functions.” He expressed the opinion that the areas utilized for different governmental functions should be spatially separated, and observed that “several of the designs submitted follow out this idea more or less distinctly, by means of a symmetrical three-part plan or three-dome motive, while others treat the building as practically a single rectangular house with no expression of its unique significance.” He offered this summation of the architectural requirements of a state capitol:
A Capitol, of all buildings, should be strikingly massive, grand, noble – typifying the power, honor, stability and superiority of the government over all individual, corporate or other institutions whatsoever in the state. It should, therefore, be at once recognizable, over all other buildings in the neighborhood, as the Capitol – regardless of its mere relative size, which may even be small – and never by any possibility be legitimately mistaken for any other institution whatsoever. 40
Green clearly embraced the architectural ideals of Academic Classicism, encouraging clarity and unity of design and disparaging some of the proposals for having “many windows, thin walls, trifling domes or domed
37 Mississippi, State House Commission, Minutes, 4-5. 38 “Report of the State House Commission to the Legislature of Mississippi, 1902,” published as an appendix to The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi [Volume 1], 1904, 654 (available on Google Books). The list is also included in Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 15-17. 39 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 17-19; and “Report of the State House Commission to the Legislature of Mississippi, 1902.” 40 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 20-22. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 21 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
towers, pinnacles and rattling unrestful sky lines.” Of particular interest are his comments about the dome and rotunda:
The dome or domes should be full, well rounded, with quiet outlines and not too high. The rotunda should be ample unobstructed by stairs or columns and of moderate height, that it may be a rotunda in fact, and not a well hole. It should always be available for an assembly room and meeting place for special occasions and the space it occupies thus rendered useful as well as architecturally imposing.41
Upon Green’s recommendation, the commission selected proposal no. 5, which had been submitted by Theodore C. Link. In his report, Green made recommendations about changes that he believed would improve the design. (These were all subsequently adopted in the final design). He further urged that the architect “should be appointed with the understanding that he shall enter de novo with the commission on the preparation of a complete design,” using the original proposal only as a conceptual model.42
Green also offered comments on several of the other proposals, including no. 8, which had been submitted by George R. Mann. Formerly from St. Louis, but residing at that time in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mann had recently completed the design of the Arkansas State Capitol, and was involved at that time with the early stages of its construction. Some years later, in 1937, Mann claimed that Link’s final design for the dome of the Mississippi State Capitol had been based on his own original design, but this claim is questionable for several reasons, not the least of which is that Bernard Green had said of Mann’s Mississippi proposal that “the domes are weak and thin in appearance.”43
Link came to Jackson and met with the commission on June 13. The following day, the commission formally accepted his design as a preliminary plan, and officially selected him to be the project architect. His contract was approved on June 30. Link spent the next three months preparing the plans and specifications, though he apparently had finalized the design of the exterior as early as August, when an illustration of the building was published in a Kentucky newspaper.44
The final design had numerous changes from Link’s original proposed design. Some were made upon the specific recommendation of Bernard Green. Others changes were likely made at the request of the Commission, and some changes were made by Link himself as he refined the design. The most evident change, made at the recommendation of Green, was the removal of a tall tower which had been the dominant feature of the original design. Two other changes that were made at Green’s suggestion were the addition of an attic story (now the fourth story) and the inclusion of a porte cochere behind the front entrance steps. The center dome was increased in height and placed upon a colonnaded drum, similar to the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The end pavilions were changed by the substitution of recessed porticoes instead of prostyle porticoes, and by the lowering of their domes and the removal of pediments at the base of the domes. These changes to the end pavilions had the effect of reducing their visual prominence and increasing the visual prominence of the center of the building.
41 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 20-22. 42 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 23-25. 43 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 24. 44 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 29-30 and 32-33. The actual contract is filed in Mississippi State House Commission, “Commission Files, 1900-1903” (Official Records, Series 634, Mississippi Department of Archives and History). The illustration of the design was published in the Daily Public Ledger (Maysville, Kentucky), August 21, 1900 (from the Chronicling America web site of the Library of Congress, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86069117/1900-08-21/ed-1/seq-3/). A very similar illustration of the Mississippi State Capitol was published in The Cook County Herald (Grand Marais, Minnesota), on October 27, 1900. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 22 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Link presented his plans and specifications to the commission on October 15. The commission carefully examined the plans and specifications, and approved them the following day, when they also approved the advertisement for bids. The bids for the project were opened on December 10, but all were too high, so the commission asked Link to make some modifications to the plans and requested revised bids from the applicants.45
Nine contractors submitted revised bids, which were received on December 12. On December 13, the commission accepted the bid of W.A. and A.E. Wells, of Chicago. This firm was an experienced and highly- regarded construction company that had built important steel-frame commercial buildings in Chicago and other Midwestern cities, for such prominent architects as Holabird and Root. Their contract was signed on December 18, 1900.46
The contract became effective as of January 1, 1901. That date has been cited in some sources as the beginning of construction, but the actual work of construction by the contractors apparently began in March.47 On March 14, 1901, the State House Commission voted to hire J.F. Barnes, a building contractor from Greenville, Mississippi, to be their on-site construction superintendent. Barnes arrived in Jackson and reported for work the next day.48
After some initial delay related to site preparation and excavation for the foundations, construction work proceeded quickly and efficiently. In his monthly reports to the commission, Barnes, himself an experienced building contractor, seems to have been continually impressed by the professionalism and skill of the contractors and subcontractors and their workmen. In 1901, no project of this size, complexity, or technical sophistication had ever been undertaken in Jackson, or even in the entire state of Mississippi.
The subcontractors for the construction work were all selected by the contractors and reported to them, so there is little record of them in the commission minutes, but they are all listed in the booklet that was prepared as a record of the rather belated cornerstone-laying ceremony that took place on June 3, 1903.49 The subcontractors were:
George Dugan, of Bedford, Indiana Cut Stone N.O. Nelson Manufacturing Co., of St. Louis Marble and Mosaic American Bridge Co., of New York Steel, Iron, and Bronze
45 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 37-39 and 41-45. The complete specifications are indexed in the Minutes on pages 45-49; the drawings are itemized on page 50, the complete specifications are transcribed on pages 51 to 177, and the advertisement for bids is shown on pages 178-179. 46 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 184-186. The contract is filed in Mississippi State House Commission, “Commission Files, 1900-1903” (Official Records, Series 634, Mississippi Department of Archives and History). By this time, the senior partner of the firm, W.A. Wells, had died. The firm was reorganized shortly afterwards as the Wells Brothers Company, but the State House Commission insisted that all business with regard to the Mississippi Capitol project be conducted using the name “W.A. and A.E. Wells” (Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 449. 47 The Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone states, on 71, that “Actual work on the building was begun Jan. 1, 1901,” but the “Report of the State House Commission to the Legislature of Mississippi, 1902” uses somewhat more ambiguous wording, saying “The Messrs. Wells began operations under the contract on the 1st day of January, 1901.” A report about the building in the 1908 Official and Statistical Register, however, on 213, says “The actual work was commenced on the building in March, 1901 and was completed by the contractors in July, 1903.” E.C. Clark, in the article “Mississippi State Capitol,” published in The Inland Architect and News Record, 42:3 (October 1903), 22-23, used exactly the same wording: “The actual work was commenced on the building in March, 1901 and was completed by the contractors in July, 1903.” 48 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 210 and 212. 49 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, 74. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 23 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Columbian Fireproofing Co., of Pittsburgh Fireproofing The Northwestern Terra Cotta Company, of Chicago Terra Cotta August Zander Co., of Chicago Plastering Art Marble Co., of Chicago, Scagliola J.C. McFarland & Co., of Chicago Roof and Skylights Hoben & Doyle, of Philadelphia Plumbing W.P. Nelson Co., of Chicago Painting Louis J. Millet, of Chicago Art Glass Otis Elevator Co., of Chicago Passenger Elevators Mosler Safe Co., of Hamilton, Ohio Burglar proof vault Orr & Locket Hardware Co., of Chicago Hardware Cassidy & Sons Manufacturing Co., of New York Electric Fixtures
Many of these firms were from Chicago, where they had undoubtedly already had experience working with the W.A. and A.E. Wells Company.
Not listed among these subcontractors was Robert P. Bringhurst, of St. Louis, the sculptor who designed the tympanum of the portico, who was apparently working directly with Theodore Link.50 Also missing from that list is A.R. Grieve, of St. Louis, the sculptor and metalworker who created the gold-leafed copper eagle that adorns the top of the dome.51
There were also several contractors hired directly by the State House Commission to carry out parts of the project other than the construction of the building itself. As listed in the booklet, they were:
Frank J. Butler, of Greenville and Jackson, Miss. Steam Fitting and Power Plant Frank Adam Electric Co., of St. Louis Electric Wiring and Electric Work J. Kennard Sons Co., of St. Louis Electric and Gas Light Fixtures General Fireproofing Co., of Youngstown, Ohio Metal Stacks for State Library George D. Barnard Co., of St. Louis Metal Furniture for State Officers Wollaeger Manufacturing Co., of Milwaukee General Wood Furniture and Cabinet Work Charles A. Babst, of New Orleans Granitoid pavements Evans & Hamilton, of Jackson Grading Board of Control of the State Penitentiary, Jackson Grading E.S. Gordon, of Jackson Grading Illinois Central Railroad Company (“at no cost to the state”) Railroad Track to New Capitol 52
Construction proceeded remarkably quickly and smoothly for a project of its size and complexity. On April 3, 1902, Barnes reported to the commission that the stonework of the exterior walls was complete except for around the dome, and that was expected to be done within the next month. On August 7, 1902, he reported that
50 According to the Minutes, 422-424, Link himself presented the proposed design for the tympanum to the commission on February 7, 1902, by means of a written description and plaster model. 51 The only documentation that has been found thus far specifically identifying A.R. Grieve as the creator of the sculpted eagle is the caption and accession information of a photograph, made in 1903, showing Grieve standing next to the sculpture. The photograph is cataloged as PI/HS/1982.0095 (“Grieve, A.R.”), item no. 1 (though it is the sole item in that folder) in the photograph collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 52 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, 75. The railroad track mentioned at the end of the list was a construction spur that proved indispensable for transporting the vast amount of structural steel, cut stone, and brick used in the project. The spur was laid specifically to provide rail access to the site, and was taken up after the heavy construction work had been completed. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 24 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
the brickwork had been completed, the stonework was complete except for carving, the structural steel was complete, the copper roofing was done, and the marble work and plastering in the interior was well underway. On December 4, Barnes reported that “the principal work now being done is the marble and scagliola work which continues with the same degree of excellence and unabated zeal by the contractors.” He added, “The Roman mosaic floor in the Governor’s Reception Hall has been completed and is a magnificent piece of work.” The windows had all been fitted by that time, so that the building was closed to the weather. In April 1903 he reported, “The stone carving is practically completed, and the eminent sculptor in charge of the tympanum has just been here and approved the work with some slight changes, which have all been done in a satisfactory manner.” 53
The building was largely complete by June 3, 1903, when an elaborate ceremony was held to lay the cornerstone. This ceremony was, in effect, the dedication ceremony for the building. It drew an enormous crowd, despite rainy weather. Among the speakers that day was Governor Andrew H. Longino, who made this observation:
I deem it due to say … that by singleness of purpose and untiring vigilance on the part of the commission, who at all times have enjoyed the confidence, co-operation, and friendship of the architect, Mr. Theodore C. Link, of St. Louis, Mo., and the contractors, Mssrs. Wells Bros. Co., of Chicago, Ill., together with the superintendents, sub-contractors, and all others connected with the work, that it has been possible to complete the building within the contract time, within the contract price, without labor disturbances or disagreements of any kind, and without the issuance of a dollar of bonds to be used in payment on the building. 54
The building was not yet complete, however, for some work remained to be done on the interior by the marble and scagliola workers. On August 20, 1903, Barnes reported that the construction work was nearly complete, and that he had examined the building with the Assistant Supervising Architect (who by that time would have been William T. Schmitt) and the Contractor’s Superintendent (Theodore H. Schlader), and had prepared a list of the minor items left to be done. He added, “The contractors have exhibited great wisdom in selecting the very best sub-contractors to be found in the country.” After receiving Barnes’s report, the members of the commission made a thorough inspection of the entire building, accompanied by the architect and a senior representative of the contracting firm. The commission then determined to formally accept the building from the contractor. On the evening of September 3, 1903, the commission invited the public to view the spectacle of the illuminated capitol when the electric lights were first fully tested. 55
At a special meeting on September 23, 1903, the commission adopted a resolution to begin the relocation of the state offices and records from the Old Capitol to the new building. The relocation set off a round of squabbling among state officials about space requirements and room assignments, which necessitated some reassignments. Surprisingly, the legislative chambers were initially furnished with desks and chairs brought over from the Old Capitol, instead of new furniture. In January 1904, some additional “metallic furniture” (filing cabinets) still needed to be purchased, but most of the furnishing of the building was complete. On April 7, 1904, the State House Commission held its last meeting, authorizing the final payments on its remaining accounts and transferring the remaining balance of $283.37 to the state treasury.56
The architect and the contractors were justifiably proud of the magnificent building. In 1902, while it was under
53 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 433-435, 466-467, 500-502, and 548-549. 54 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, 17. 55 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 582, 584, and 594. 56 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 580-584, 596, 620, and 629. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 25 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form construction, Theodore Link had entered his design for the Mississippi State Capitol in the Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club, where it was displayed among the finest recent works of his fellow architects in his home city. It is unclear how much of the design was exhibited, but the catalog of the exhibition included a reproduction of the drawing of the South Elevation (the front façade) from the construction plans. The contractors, the Wells Brothers Company, had two full pages in the advertising section of the catalog of that exhibition, including a full-page photograph of the Mississippi Capitol under construction. 57
The completion of the New Capitol was met with great popular acclaim and admiration. One indication of its favorable reception was the degree to which it was emulated by other buildings throughout the state. The impact of the new Capitol on the architecture of Mississippi was immediate and profound. Almost immediately following its construction – even while it was being built – architectural tastes swiftly changed throughout the state. The Romanesque Revival style, which had been the preferred style for public buildings in Mississippi since the mid-1880s, fell out of fashion virtually overnight, supplanted by the Classical Revival. How much of this sudden popularity of the Classical Revival for governmental and institutional architecture in Mississippi is attributable directly to the construction of the Capitol, and how much to other influences, is impossible to determine, but it is certainly clear that the construction of the Capitol coincided with an abrupt and substantial change in architectural fashion.
The New Capitol had prominent admirers in other states as well. Shortly after its completion, the Mississippi State Capitol was the subject of a favorable article, with photographs, in The Inland Architect and News Record, a monthly architectural journal published in Chicago. The article provided detailed descriptions of the building and the process of its construction, and praised the work of the contractor, the major subcontractors, and the architect. It observed that the Mississippi Capitol “emphasizes the advent of prosperity and modern progress in the South, and its educational mission will be far-reaching in its salutary effects upon future public buildings throughout the Southern States.” 58
The Mississippi Capitol was regarded as a model by the capitol-building commissions of other states. When it was nearing completion, in May 1903, the building was visited by the Arkansas Capitol Commission in order to “obtain all the information that in their judgment would be of value in the prosecution of our work.”59
In 1905, a delegation from Idaho’s capitol building commission, on a tour to examine the capitols of some other states, came to Jackson to see the new Mississippi Capitol. According to a report in The Idaho Daily Statesman, they were very impressed with the building. “The members of the commission agree that the Mississippi Capitol building is more nearly such a one as is contemplated here and would require less changes to answer for Idaho’s needs than any other single building inspected.” 60
Architectural Context: Historical Background of Academic Classicism The thirty-five years from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until the end of the nineteenth century comprised a period of great architectural change and experimentation in the United States. The architecture of those years reflected a wide diversity of styles, and it was not uncommon to see features from several different styles
57 “Mississippi State Capitol, Jackson, Mississippi, Theodore C. Link, Architect,” in the Catalogue of the Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club (1902). The illustration of the drawing of the façade is on page 66; the advertisement for the Wells Brothers Company is on pages 92-93. 58 E.C. Clark, “Mississippi State Capitol,” The Inland Architect and News Record, 42:3 (October 1903), 22-23, with a photograph on 23 and six other photographs on accompanying plates. 59 Blake Wintory, “A Tale of Two Domes: Mississippi and Arkansas” (Part I), Preservation in Mississippi, August 22, 2011, http://misspreservation.com/2011/08/22/architectural-twins-mississippi-and-arkansas-state-capitol-domes/. 60 “About the History of Idaho’s Capitol,” a brochure published by the Idaho Capitol Commission, www.capitolcommission.idaho.gov/.../idaho_capitol_history_brochure NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 26 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
combined in the same building. Although classically-inspired styles were widely used, many of the major public buildings erected during this period, including several state capitols, were built in non-classical styles. The Connecticut state capitol, designed by Richard M. Upjohn and built from 1872 to 1879, was an elaborate display of High Victorian Gothic. Louisiana’s Gothic Revival state capitol, completed in 1849, had burned during the Civil War, but it was rebuilt within its ruined walls in 1880-82 under the direction of William A. Freret in an even more imaginative expression of the Gothic style. The New York state capitol, begun by Thomas W. Fuller in 1868 but largely built in the 1880s under the direction of Leopold Eidlitz and H.H. Richardson, has a distinctly French Renaissance or Chateauesque character on the exterior, while the interior expresses Gothic and Romanesque styling.61
Many of the United States post offices and federal buildings constructed during the late nineteenth century under the direction of the office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury were expressions of the Romanesque Revival (particularly the vigorous Richardsonian Romanesque style) or the English mode of the Queen Anne style.62 A large proportion of county courthouses and city halls of the 1880s and 1890s were built in the Romanesque style or in a mixture of the Romanesque with other styles.
Although the popularity of classically-inspired architecture waned during this period, it never completely fell out of fashion, particularly for major public buildings such as state capitols; but the classically-inspired public buildings that were built from the 1870s through the early 1890s largely exhibited an approach to classical design that was heavily influenced by the High Victorian Italianate, French Second Empire, and French Renaissance styles. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale, in Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A., refer to the state capitols of the period from 1866 to 1890 as “Gilded Age” capitols. Alan Gowans, in Styles and Types of North American Architecture, characterizes these buildings as examples of “Picturesque Classicism.” These classically-inspired state capitols and other major public buildings tended to have highly articulated exteriors, with a distinct vertical emphasis, and their features, particularly windows and columns, were often vertically elongated. They often had Italianate features, such as exaggerated quoins and heavily molded window surrounds, and Second Empire features such as mansard roofs, square domes, and external expression of each story as a distinct tier. Many of those characteristics are expressed in the capitols of Kansas (1866-1903), Illinois (1868-88), Iowa (1871-86), Michigan (1872-78), Indiana (1878-88), Texas (1882-88) (NHL, 1986), Colorado (1886-1908), and Wyoming (1887-88 and 1889-90, enlarged 1915-1917) (NHL, 1987). 63
It was during the last third of the nineteenth century that the custom of placing large, prominent central domes on state capital buildings became well established. This architectural motif, the secularization of a feature borrowed from European cathedrals of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, had been used in the design of numerous state capitols before the Civil War, including the Old Capitol of Mississippi (1836-40), but these buildings tended to have relatively low domes, set upon short drums, apparently following the example of the United States Capitol as it had been completed by Charles Bullfinch in about 1826.64 It was the completion of
61 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 162-166 and 194-196; Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 120-125. 62 Examples of buildings expressing these styles are pictured in Antoinette Lee, Architects to the Nation: The Rise and Decline of the Supervising Architect’s Office (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 111-162. Regarding the use of the term “Rundbogenstil” in this context, see William H. Pierson, “Richard Upjohn and the American Rundbogenstil” in Winterthur Portfolio 21:4 (Winter 1986), particularly pages 229-230. 63 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 166-167, 187, 198-200; Gowans, Styles and Types of North American Architecture, 87. Gowans pictures the Colorado State Capitol as an example of Picturesque Classicism, and contrasts it with the Missouri State Capitol as an example of the later academic Classicism, which he refers to in this instance as “the majestic, learned early-twentieth-century Academic Roman Revival Style.” The design and construction of these capitols is discussed in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 126-129. 64 The U.S. Capitol, as it as it appeared in 1847, is pictured in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 121. There were NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 27 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
the new dome of the U.S. Capitol (finished on the exterior in 1863 and inside in 1866) that established the main precedent, and to a great extent the model, for the large, monumental domes topping the great majority of the state capitols that were built from the late 1860s through the 1920s. The new dome of the U.S. Capitol, designed by Thomas U. Walter, was built of cast iron, and was inspired, in part, by the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and the dome of the Panthéon in Paris. 65 Apparently inspired by the U.S. Capitol dome, a new dome was added to the New Hampshire capitol in 1863-66, and a dome much more like that of the U.S. Capitol was designed about 1866 for the (old) Wisconsin capitol (no longer extant). The California capitol (completed in 1878) also had a similar dome. The presence of large, monumental domes gives many of the state capitols built between the 1860s and the 1920s a certain similarity of form, but the architectural character of the individual buildings varies greatly.66
Beaux Arts Classicism By the 1890s, under the leadership of architects who had been educated at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, American architects had begun to embrace a new approach to the design of public buildings that was more rigorous and disciplined in its composition and more erudite and deliberate in its interpretation and application of the vocabulary of classical design. A similar movement was also occurring in the fine arts. Broadly, these developments are referred to as the “American Renaissance.” 67
In the philosophy of design espoused by the École des Beaux-Arts, architectural style was not a decorative scheme applied to a building for picturesque effect, but was an integral aspect of the overall compositional unity of the building.
Beaux-Arts training in architecture was broadly based and did not promote the exclusive use of classical style. Instead, it instilled principles of overall design or composition, a consideration that many critics felt lacking in public architecture in the United States: “Composition was the French academic system’s term for what it considered the essential act of architectural design. What composition signified was not so much the design of ornament or of façades but of whole buildings, conceived as three-dimensional entities and seen together in plan, section and elevation.” 68
The classical architecture of ancient Greece and Rome, and of the Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical eras, was favored by architects trained in this design philosophy because its emphasis on order, symmetry, and monumentality enabled a clear expression of Beaux-Arts design principles. Additionally the return to classicism indicated an emphasis on clarity and disciplined design in contrast to the novelty, variety, and picturesqueness favored by Victorian designers.
some exceptions to this general pattern of low domes; several antebellum capitols, most notably the Vermont capitol as rebuilt in 1857-59, had domes set upon higher drums, but lower domes were more typical during that period. 65 Henry Hope Reed, The United States Capitol: Its Architecture and Decoration (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005), 15-18 and 31; and William C. Allen, History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics (Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press of the Pacific, 2005), 225-226, 324-327, and 340. There is an excellent photograph of the U.S. Capitol, as it appeared about 1885, in American Victorian Architecture (New York, Dover Publications, 1975), which is a translation of L’Architecture Américain, originally published in 1886. 66 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 148. The Statehouse as an architectural type, and particularly the form characterized as a “domed, low cross” is addressed in Chapter 2 of Charles T. Goodsell, The American Statehouse: Interpreting Democracy’s Temples (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2001). 67 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 210-212. 68 Sally Webster, in “The Civilization of the West,” Chapter 6 of Cass Gilbert, Life and Work: Architect of the Public Domain, ed. Barbara S. Christen and Steven Flanders (New York: R. W. Norton, 2001), 102, quoting David van Zanten, “Architectural Composition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts from Charles Percier to Charles Garnier,” in Arthur Drexler, ed., The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1977), 112. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 28 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Another important aspect of the Beaux Arts design philosophy was the integration of the full range of visual arts into architectural design, so that architecture embraced not only the composition and structure of the building itself, but also painting, sculpture, mosaics, and art glass as well as the traditional crafts of architectural ironwork, woodwork, and stone carving.
In order to employ classicism as an integral unifying theme in the design of buildings as complete compositions, an architect had to understand the underlying principles as well as the vocabulary of classicism. This understanding was best achieved through a rigorous architectural education—in contrast to the then-typical vocational approach of builders becoming architects through experience—and this erudite approach to classical design was therefore termed “Academic” classicism. Although it could be applied to a wide range of building types, it was most effectively employed in the design of monumental public buildings.
Initially, this new approach to monumental public architecture was largely confined to the major cities of the Northeast, particularly New York City, the “epicenter of American Beaux Arts Classicism.” 69 The leading architects in this development were the firm of McKim, Mead and White of New York. They were the designers of one of the earliest and most influential works of Academic Classicism, and the first to receive widespread acclaim – the Boston Public Library, which was begun in 1887 and completed in 1895. McKim, Mead and White were also the architects of the original buildings of Columbia University in New York City, most notably the Low Library, designed in 1894 and completed in 1898. 70
Popular appreciation for the architecture and urban planning of the American Renaissance was greatly stimulated by a series of World’s Fairs held in various American cities in the 1890s and early 1900s, most notably the World’s Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893.71 The significance of the World’s Columbian Exposition was summed up by Hitchcock and Seale:
The producers of Chicago’s great show changed the history of American architecture, extending, if only nominally, the professional climate of New York and Chicago to the whole of America. In turn the fair sold the public on Beautiful Architecture, with the corollary that real beauty could only be created by established professionals. The Chicago exposition also proved that a city could be clean and safe and lovely. Americans willingly accepted the idea that architecture would lead them into the Age of the City Beautiful. Over and over again, in the remotest places, mayors and businessmen pored over pictures of the White City and imagined what their own towns might become. 72
During the two decades following the World’s Columbian Exposition, the architecture of the American Renaissance became increasingly popular throughout the United States. Of the several styles encompassed by the movement, the Neoclassical Revival came to be the most widely-adopted style for public buildings throughout the United States, although many fine examples of the other modes of Academic Classicism were built as well. The largest and finest of these buildings, particularly state capitol buildings, demanded skills in design, engineering, and project management that were beyond the capabilities of most small, local architectural firms of that time; so larger and more experienced firms, with regional or national reputations and résumés, usually based in the larger cities of the Northeast or the Midwest, were often called upon for these large-scale projects.
Two important factors enabled the construction of large, complex public buildings throughout the United States
69 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 210-212. 70 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 210-212. 71 Whiffen and Koeper, American Architecture 1607-1976, 273-275; and Kidney, The Architecture of Choice, 18-20. 72 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 215. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 29 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
in the 1890s and early 1900s. One was the rapid and efficient transportation of people and materials that was made possible by the development of the vast American railroad network. This transportation system allowed the shipment of such materials as structural steel, factory-produced furniture and building supplies, and distinct varieties of marble and other building stones to any city in the United States; and it also made it practical for architects, building contractors, and skilled artisans to travel easily from one area of the country to another. The other factor was the cumulative effect of many significant advances in building technology, including structural steel framing, electric lighting, and steam heating systems. Without these technological advances, such large, complex, and ornate buildings could not be feasible.
The Earliest American Renaissance State Capitol Buildings The first state capitol to express this new approach to Classical architecture was the Rhode Island State House, designed by McKim, Mead and White of New York, which was begun in 1892 and completed in 1904. It is a large, monumental Classical Revival building, clad in ashlar, and surmounted by a dome set upon a tall drum encircled by a Corinthian peristyle. It combines elements of Beaux-Arts Classicism, the Neoclassical Revival, and the Second Renaissance Revival into a distinctive and unified design. It became an important model for the design of other state capitol buildings for the next three decades.73
The second of the American Renaissance state capitols to be designed, and the first to be started after the World’s Columbian Exposition, was the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul. Begun in 1896 and completed in 1905, it was designed by Cass Gilbert. Like the Rhode Island State House, the Minnesota capitol was a highly refined example of Academic Classicism in the Beaux Arts tradition. Other state houses begun during the next decade included the capitols of Montana (1896-1902; enlarged 1909-12), Arkansas (1899-1915), Pennsylvania (1902-06), Idaho (1905-20), Kentucky (1905-09), South Dakota (1907-10), Wisconsin (1906-17). The Mississippi State Capitol, which was begun in 1901 and completed in 1903, is among the earliest and finest of the American Renaissance capitol buildings built during this period.
In February 2009, the National Landmarks Program of the National Park Service issued a brief paper, “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks: A National Historic Landmark Special Study,” by James A. Jacobs, which examines some of the issues involved in assessing a state capitol building for national significance. 74 The paper begins with a recognition of the importance of state capitol buildings. After addressing some early designations of capitols as National Historic landmarks for their historical associations, the paper returns to the theme of architectural significance, observing that “because they are generally among the highest profile buildings in a capital city or, at times, an entire state, and often designed by noted architects or firms, arguing the national significance of capitols based on architecture has at times been relatively straightforward,” but noting that “the practical and symbolic functions of these buildings, and the long and often labyrinthine construction histories, make demonstrating national significance and accurately documenting physical integrity a daunting process.” 75
After a summary of the architectural character of some of the older state capitol buildings, the paper addresses the subject of the post-Civil War state capitol buildings distinguished by the presence of a prominent dome:
Between the Civil War and World War I, more than a score of new capitols having prominent domes were completed, and many existing capitols were significantly modified with new wings, larger domes, and extensive remodeling. Without exception, these capitols embody Beaux-Arts planning principles and nearly all are representative of a strain of monumental classicism known
73 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 148; Wilson, The American Renaissance, 53; and Wilson, McKim, Mead & White, Architects, 161-171. 74 Jacobs, “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks.” 75 Jacobs, “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks,” 3. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 30 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
most inclusively as American Renaissance. The superficial similarity between this generation of capitols is striking, and underscores both the obvious influence of the U.S. Capitol building, as well as the speed with which the form of a dominant dome became strongly symbolic of democracy in the United States.76
Having isolated “domed, Beaux-Arts capitols of the American Renaissance” as a distinctive category, the “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks” paper then mentions the four representatives of that group that have received NHL designation – the capitols of Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The paper then addresses the general exclusion of capitols from published histories of American architecture. After listing some earlier buildings, the paper notes the lack of attention given to buildings of the American Renaissance era: “Intriguingly, except for the U.S. Capitol itself, the domed, Beaux-Arts state capitols have been largely ignored in most general architectural histories of the United States, undoubtedly in part because of their physical similarity.” 77 However, despite having recognized the scarcity of published studies to provide a well- established context for assessing architectural significance, the paper then proceeds to mention several state capitols “that might be significant based on architecture alone” and specifically the capitols of Minnesota, Rhode Island, and West Virginia.
There are certainly very few recognized scholarly works that have examined state capitols within an architectural context. The only well-known work that specifically addresses the architectural history of state capitol buildings is Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A., by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale, which was published in 1976. Charles T. Goodsell’s The American Statehouse: Interpreting Democracy’s Temples, published in 2001, takes a more analytical and thematic approach to capitol buildings, rather than historical. A more recent book, State Houses: America’s 50 State Capitol Buildings (2005), by Susan W. Thrane and Tom Patterson, is mainly a collection of fine color photographs with some historical and descriptive information provided about each building. Broad architectural histories seldom address state capitol buildings, and when they do, it is usually in a brief and cursory manner. The widely-used, but dated, standard reference on architectural styles, American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles, by Marcus Whiffen, does not cite a single state capitol building as an example of any of the American Renaissance styles. Walter C. Kidney, in his concise but insightful study of the American Renaissance era, The Architecture of Choice: Eclecticism in America, 1880-1930, briefly cites the capitols of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania, before mentioning the later and more unusual Nebraska, Oregon, and North Dakota capitols.
As important as the scant attention given to state capitols in scholarly literature is the fact that no definitive, comprehensive scholarly study of the architecture of American Academic Classicism has yet been published. Broad architectural histories written from the 1940s though the 1960s, such as Henry-Russell Hitchcock’s Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, originally published in 1958, tended to be dismissive or disparaging toward Academic Classicism, regarding it as a dead-end side road on the march toward modernism.78 More recent broad architectural histories, such as Marcus Whiffen and Frederick Koeper’s American Architecture 1607-1976 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981) have tended to touch only briefly on the classically-inspired architecture of the 1890s through the 1920s, emphasizing the importance of McKim, Mead & White and the World’s Columbian Exposition, but not providing any real basis for evaluating historical or architectural significance. Whiffen’s influential American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles (1969) provides some information about the major styles of architectural expression, but that book is more useful for description and categorization than for understanding architectural context. The first important work
76 Jacobs, “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks,” 4. 77 Jacobs, “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks,” 4. 78 Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (in the Pelican History of Art series), Fourth edition (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1978; originally published in 1958), particularly 530-533 and 541-545. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 31 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form to examine the subject specifically was The American Renaissance, 1876-1917, by Richard Guy Wilson, Dianne H. Pilgrim, and Richard N. Murray (New York: The Brooklyn Museum, 1979), but it was written as a group of introductory essays intended to accompany a museum exhibition, and was not a comprehensive overview. Walter C. Kidney’s The Architecture of Choice: Eclecticism in America, 1880-1930 (1974) is informative but provides only a brief overview. Other works, such as monographs about individual architects and firms, tend to be limited in their scope and do not provide a broad view. A comprehensive study of American Academic Classicism that incorporates the vast research of the last four decades remains to be written.
What is required, then, to make a case for national significance for an individual building of the American Renaissance era, and particularly for a state capitol, is for the researcher to become sufficiently well acquainted with the cultural and architectural history of the era to be able not only to interpret a particular building within its broader architectural and historical context, but also to show that the building makes a significant and singular statement about that context. In order to be nationally “significant,” a historic building must “signify” a meaningful aspect of American history. In a sense, it must “tell a story” that enriches or elucidates a broader national historical narrative in a way that few other buildings can. A careful consideration of the architectural character and history of the Mississippi State Capitol within the context of the architecture of the United States from the 1890s through the 1910s reveals that the building does, indeed, make a significant and singular statement about academic Classicism at the turn of the twentieth century.
Comparison with other State Capitols from the 1890s through the 1910s In Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A., their important and often-cited study of the history of America’s state capitols, Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale, separate the classically-inspired capitol buildings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries into two groups: those that were largely built before 1890, which they refer to as the “Gilded Age” capitols, and those that were built from the 1890s through the 1920s, which they characterize as “Monuments of the American Renaissance.” As discussed earlier in this document, the “Gilded Age” capitols were generally characterized by composition and detailing influenced by the High Victorian Italianate, French Second Empire, and French Renaissance styles, and they tended to have a distinct vertical emphasis, often expressed by tall, slender windows, attenuated columns, and domes raised upon tall, proportionally slender drums, which in several instances were multi-tiered. Included in this group are the capitols of Kansas (1866-1903), Illinois (1868-88), Iowa (1871-86), Michigan (1872-78), Indiana (1878-88), Texas (1882-88) (NHL, 1986), Colorado (1886-1908), and Wyoming (1887-88 and 1889-90, enlarged 1915-1917) (NHL, 1987). Hitchcock and Seale also include the Georgia capitol (1884-89) (NHL, 1973) in this group.79
The “American Renaissance” capitol buildings, built from the 1890s through the 1920s, are characterized by a much more “correct” Academic Classicism. The formal organization and disciplined composition of these buildings shows a strong Beaux Arts approach to design, but their detailing tends to be more expressive of the restrained and austere classicism of the Neoclassical Revival than of the elaborate and ornamental classicism sometimes referred to as the “Beaux-Arts style.”
The Academic Classicism of the American Renaissance first appeared in the urban centers of the Northeast. The first state capitol to express this new approach to Classical architecture was the Rhode Island State House (1892-1904). Designed by McKim, Mead & White, one of the most prestigious and respected architectural firms in the country at that time, this building was very highly regarded and influential, serving as an exemplar for many other capitol buildings. However, it does not itself represent or embody the spread of American Renaissance Classicism outside of the urbanized Northeastern states and its adoption nationally as the accepted
79 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 126-129 and 168-175. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 32 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
style for public architecture.
The second of the American Renaissance capitols to be designed, and the first to be started after the World’s Columbian Exposition, was the Minnesota State Capitol (1896-1905, Cass Gilbert, architect). This was another very significant and highly influential building, and it exemplifies the spread of academic Classicism to the prosperous and rapidly growing cities of the upper Midwest. (At the end of the nineteenth century St. Paul, Minnesota, with a population of 163,065 in 1900, was a vastly larger city than Jackson, which had a population of only 7,816.)
The importance of these two buildings was summed up by Hitchcock and Seale in Temples of Democracy:
The Capitols of Minnesota and Rhode Island were both completed in the first decade of the twentieth century. They became important models which were never really copied, but which loomed behind every other project of that kind for a whole generation. If any American capitols ever represented the high style of their period, it is these two.80
The Minnesota Capitol provides a distinct contrast to the Mississippi Capitol in several respects. Located in a large and prosperous city in the upper Midwest, it was conceived from the beginning to be a statement of Minnesota’s wealth and sophistication. At a final cost of over four and a half million dollars (more than four times the cost of the Mississippi Capitol), it was intended to rival the greatest public buildings of the Northeast in the quality (and cost) of its materials and its artwork, which included murals by several of the most noted artists of its time.81 The Mississippi Capitol, in contrast, relies more on the architectural elements themselves to convey the building’s grandeur, anticipating the more direct and austere Neoclassicism of the 1910s and 20s. Stylistically, the Minnesota Capitol has more of a “Beaux-Arts” character, whereas the Mississippi Capitol has more of a Neoclassical Revival design. The plans differ as well. The Minnesota Capitol has a somewhat T- shaped composition with the Senate on one end, the Supreme Court on the other, and the House of Representatives across the back, whereas the Mississippi Capitol places the Senate and the House of Representatives at opposite ends of a central axis, with Governor’s Office near the center, giving a clearer visual expression of the bicameral governmental structure. 82
It is interesting to note that the Mississippi capitol, begun in 1901 and completed in 1903, was finished before both the Rhode Island and Minnesota capitols were completed. Moreover, Mississippi’s capitol, with its remarkably short, three-year period of construction, possesses clear integrity as a composition and presents a more coherent and unified architectural narrative.
At the same time that the Minnesota capitol was under construction, a state capitol was being built for Montana (1896-1902; enlarged 1909-12) (Charles Emlen Bell and J.H. Kent, original architects). Although classical in design, it is rather austere, and its architectural unity was altered when it was substantially enlarged, giving it a sprawling nine-part façade.83
80 Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 218. 81 Thomas O’Sullivan, “The Minnesota State Capitol: Thinking Internationally, Designing Locally,” Chapter 5 of Cass Gilbert, Life and Work, ed. Barbara S. Christen and Steven Flanders, 87-92, and Sally Webster, “The Civilization of the West,” Chapter 6 of the same book, 100-101. 82 Information about the Minnesota State Capitol is included in Christen and Flanders, eds., Cass Gilbert, Life and Work, particularly 87-112; Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 215-226; and a brochure, “Minnesota State Capitol” (St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society, n.d, circa 1983). Color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 156-161, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 300-309. 83 Information about the Montana State Capitol is included in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 228-231; and color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 126-131, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 496-507. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 33 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
The building most comparable to the Mississippi State Capitol in many respects is the Arkansas State Capitol (1899-1915).84 Although begun one year before the Mississippi Capitol, it was not completed until twelve years after it. The initial designer and original architect of the Arkansas State Capitol was George R. Mann, of St. Louis. He was dismissed from the project in 1909, and Cass Gilbert, architect of the Minnesota State Capitol, was subsequently hired to complete the building. The building therefore lacks the architectural unity seen in the Mississippi capitol. This is especially evident in the dome. Mann’s design had incorporated a dome based on the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, but the dome that was finally built was designed by Gilbert, and has an encircling peristyle like the dome of the Mississippi capitol.85 The portico of the Arkansas capitol is smaller and more restrained than the portico of the Mississippi capitol, and does not have a sculpted tympanum. It appears to have been copied, almost verbatim, from the main entrance portico of the Palace of Fine Arts at World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. One of the most evident architectural differences between the Mississippi and Arkansas capitols is that the body of the Arkansas capitol is rectilinear on all four sides, with a portico at each end, where the Mississippi capitol has a semi-circular peristyle at each end. There are important differences in the interior as well. Where the broad corridors of the Mississippi Capitol are uninterrupted linear spaces, the main corridors of the Arkansas Capitol are interrupted by staircases, which break up the axial sightlines.
About a year after construction began on the Mississippi capitol, work was started on the Pennsylvania State Capitol (1902-06) (NHL, 2006). This building is an exceptionally fine example of Beaux Arts Classicism, and it is located within an elegantly composed complex expressing the aesthetic of the City Beautiful movement. It is a superb statement of the architectural and artistic achievement of the American Renaissance; but, like the Rhode Island state house, it does not in itself exemplify the national scope of academic Classicism through its widespread adoption outside of the Northeast. 86
The Idaho State Capitol (1905-20, Tourtellotte & Hummel, architects) is similar to the Mississippi capitol in its architectural character and in its historical context.87 Indeed, it was built in a city even smaller than Jackson and even further away from the centers of development of American Renaissance architecture in the Northeast. (The population of Boise, Idaho, in 1900 was only 5,957, compared to Jackson’s 7,816.) It was built, however, somewhat later than the Mississippi capitol, and its supervisory commission regarded Mississippi’s capitol as a model for the design of their own building.88 The exterior of the Idaho capitol appears to draw heavily on Link’s Mississippi capitol, though the interior is quite different. The Idaho capitol was built in two phases, the central block in 1905-12 and the wings in 1919-21, so it, too, lacks the architectural unity of the Mississippi capitol.
The Kentucky State Capitol (1905-09, Frank Mills Andrews, architect) and the South Dakota State Capitol (1907-10, Charles Emlen Bell, architect) are both noteworthy examples of American Renaissance state houses.
84 Information about the Arkansas State Capitol is included in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 231-234, 242- 243, and 262; and color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 192-197, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 388- 399. 85 The relationship between the domes of the Arkansas and Mississippi capitols is addressed in the Description section of this document. It is rather ironic that Mann’s unexecuted design for the dome of the Arkansas Capitol, based on the dome of St. Peter’s, was superseded by the dome designed by Gilbert, which was more like the dome of St. Paul’s in London; whereas the dome that Gilbert designed for the Minnesota Capitol was based on the dome of St. Peter’s. 86 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination, Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex, Harrisonburg, Pennsylvania (September 4, 2012). Additional information about the Pennsylvania State Capitol is included in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 243-249; and color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 150-155, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 132-145. 87 Information about the Idaho State Capitol is included in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 249-251. Color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 222-227, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 486-495. 88 “About the History of Idaho’s Capitol.” NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 34 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Like the Mississippi capitol, each of these buildings was built within a short span of years under the direction of a single architect, but they were built slightly later, having been started after the completion of the Mississippi building, and the historic contexts of their construction are different. Although they, too, embody the nationwide adoption of academic Classicism during this period, they do not illustrate this as clearly or as powerfully as the Mississippi capitol. 89
The Wisconsin State Capitol (NHL, 2001), built from 1906 to 1917, is comparable in many respects to the capitols of Minnesota in the Midwest and Pennsylvania in the Northeast, in terms of both its architectural character and its historic context. Like them, it is a lavishly and expensively adorned building, expressing the magnificence which could be achieved by American Renaissance designers in populous and wealthy states. Its cruciform architectural composition is very different from other capitols of its era. 90
The capitols of Utah (1912-15), Missouri (1913-17), and Oklahoma (1914-17) were all begun several years after the completion of the Mississippi capitol, by which time the use of Academic Classicism for state capitol buildings had become well established. The exteriors of these three buildings have a strong similarity – the front façade of each is a three-part composition (a porticoed central block with recessed wings, without articulated end pavilions), and the front wall plane of the wings is distinguished by a long, continuous colonnade. This arrangement of the façade is very different from the five-part or seven-part façades of the Mississippi, Idaho, and Pennsylvania capitols, which have distinct end pavilions visually expressing the bicameral composition of legislature. The placement of columns on the façades of the Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Idaho capitols is limited to the center portico and the end pavilions, with the intervening walls not being colonnaded. (The capitols of Missouri and Arkansas have a composition half-way between these two arrangements – they have five-part compositions with distinct end pavilions, but the intermediate walls are colonnaded.) 91
The Washington Legislative Building (1922-28) and the West Virginia State Capitol (1924-32) were begun more than twenty years after the Mississippi capitol, after the end of World War I. Their architectural and historical context is therefore different from the capitol buildings erected earlier in the century.92
All of the state capitol buildings erected between the 1890s and the 1920s are major governmental buildings expressing the academic Classicism of the American Renaissance, and all of them can be viewed superficially as examples of Beaux Arts-influenced domed capitol buildings; but each has its own individual character and each has its own story. Of all of these buildings, the Mississippi State Capitol most vividly expresses, in a single
89 Information about the Kentucky State Capitol is included in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 250-253. Color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 174-179, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 200-213. Information about the South Dakota State Capitol is included in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 230-232. Color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 180-185, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 530-543. 90 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination, Wisconsin State Capitol, Madison, Wisconsin (June 10, 2000). Additional information about the Wisconsin State Capitol is included in the Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 240-242 and 262-264; and color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 204- 209, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 288-299. It is also pictured in Kidney, The Architecture of Choice, plate 24. 91 Information about the Utah State Capitol is included in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 253-254, and 258; and color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 186-191, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 565-579. Information about the Missouri State Capitol is included in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 267-271; and color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 210-215, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 374-387. Information about the Oklahoma State Capitol is included in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 269-271; and color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 216-221, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 544-555. 92 Information about the Washington Legislative Building is included in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 257- 261; and color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 228-233, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 436-449. Information about the West Virginia State Capitol is included in Hitchcock and Seale, Temples of Democracy, 271-272; and color photographs are included in Thrane and Patterson, State Houses, 240-246, and Ruggerio, State Capitols, 618-627. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 35 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
building, both the fully-expressed architectural character of Beaux-Arts-influenced classicism, as interpreted by a single architect, and the popular adoption of Academic Classicism throughout the United States as a national architectural movement at the turn of the twentieth century.
The Mississippi State Capitol’s National Significance within the Context of Academic Classicism There are two important aspects to the national significance of the Mississippi State Capitol within the context of American Academic Classicism. The first aspect is the architectural character of the building itself. It is a particularly well designed building that clearly expresses the ideals of the American Renaissance. The clarity and elegance of its plan vividly illustrate the order and discipline that were characteristic of the Beaux-Arts approach to architectural design; its careful and refined application of classical architectural elements expresses the erudite approach to design that was a hallmark of American Academic Classicism; and its skillful integration of painting, sculpture, art glass, and building craft into its design expresses the aesthetic ideals of the American Renaissance. It is a fine example of American Academic Classical architecture. What sets it apart from most other American Renaissance state capitols are its relatively early date, having been completed in 1903, and the unity and integrity of its design and execution by a single architect and a single contractor over a short three-year span.
The other aspect of its national significance is its place within the historical development of academic classical architecture in the United States and the broader historical developments of American culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. What the Mississippi State Capitol expresses and represents most vividly is the spread of Academic Classicism out from the urban centers of the northeast and the Midwest to become accepted throughout the United States as a truly national architectural style, achievable in even small agricultural states, and, indirectly, the developments in building technology and transportation that enabled that spreading to occur.
American Renaissance Classicism did not capture the national imagination because a few fine examples were built in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia, but rather, to a great extent, because it was expressed nationally and internationally in a highly visible and widely accessible manner at several enormously popular world's fairs, most notably the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha in 1898, and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904. It was in these places that American Renaissance Classicism was embraced by the American public as the national style for monumental architecture. In an age of eclecticism, when many diverse styles were all in vogue at the same time, American Renaissance Classicism was, without question the dominant architectural style for public and institutional buildings – for capitols, courthouses, post offices, city halls, museums, libraries, public auditoriums, military memorials, college buildings, public schools, railroad stations, banks, and even many churches and synagogues – throughout the United States; and its most prominent and most complete expressions were the state capitols of that period. It is this adoption of American Renaissance Classicism outside of the urban centers of the Northeast that the Mississippi State Capitol expresses most strongly and vividly.
Although the earliest works of Academic Classicism were built in the 1890s (and were largely limited to the urban Northeast and the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893), the Mississippi State Capitol was nonetheless squarely at the forefront of the movement. The construction of the Mississippi Capitol predated many of the most notable examples of academic Classical Revival architecture in the United States, including the New York Public Library (1902-11), Grand Central Station (1903-13), and Pennsylvania Station (1906-10) in New York City; Roosevelt Hall of the National War College (1903-07), Union Station (1903-08), the National Museum of Natural History (1904-11), the Lincoln Memorial (1912-22), and the U.S. Supreme Court Building (1929-35) in Washington, D.C.; City Hall in San Francisco (1912-15); and the major Neoclassical works of John Russell Pope. The building also predated the construction of other landmark examples of academic Classical architecture in the Deep South, including the former U.S. Post Office and Custom House (now City Hall) NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 36 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
(1905-08) in Biloxi; the Louisiana Supreme Court Building (1907-09) and the Old Post Office (1914) in New Orleans; and the Shelby County Courthouse in Memphis (1909).
At the time the Mississippi State Capitol was built, Mississippi was a poor state, its economy still dependent to a large degree on cotton and timber. It was a very rural state, with only a few small cities. In 1900, the largest and most important were Vicksburg, with a population of 14,834, and Meridian, with population of 14,050. Jackson, the capital city, was scarcely half their size, with a population in 1900 of only 7,816. One advantage Jackson did have was transportation. Jackson was one of Mississippi’s railroad hubs, and because of the nation’s broad and growing network of railroads, Jackson was linked by rail to cities throughout the United States. Of particular importance was the Illinois Central Railroad, which linked Jackson directly to Chicago and New Orleans.
The development of the American railroad network by the turn of the twentieth century tied Jackson into a transportation system that enabled the shipment of structural steel, high-quality architectural granite and limestone, exotic marbles, custom-made terra cotta, elegant art glass, Mosler safes, and Otis elevators to virtually any city in the United States – and not only the materials, but people as well: architects, contractors, sub-contractors, and skilled craftsmen could move with relative ease all over the country. It is interesting to note that the architect of the Mississippi Capitol, Theodore Link, often traveled back and forth between Jackson and St. Louis by rail to check on the project. It was this transportation network that enabled architects and building contractors of the period to develop far-reaching regional and national practices.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the construction of the Mississippi State Capitol is that such a large, stylistically refined, complex, and technologically advanced building could be built between 1901 and 1903 in the tiny, remote, and provincial city of Jackson, Mississippi, by a prominent St. Louis architect and a leading Chicago construction company, using art glass from Chicago, structural steel from a New York company, limestone shipped by rail from Indiana, terra cotta from Chicago, custom furniture from Milwaukee, and marble from many sources. The national significance of the Mississippi Capitol derives not simply from its physical character as a work of Academic Classical architecture, in and of itself, but also from the achievement of its construction in a small town in a rural area of the Deep South, hundreds of miles away from New York and Chicago. Despite the distances involved and the complexity of moving the necessary workmen and materials, the construction was completed in only three years. That a building of such quality as the Mississippi State Capital was built in such a small town as Jackson in a state so far removed from the urban Northeast shows vividly that Academic Classical architecture had truly been embraced as a national architectural movement.
Comparison with other National Historic Landmarks There are several architecturally significant examples of American Renaissance architecture that have already been designated as National Historic Landmarks. Of those, the ones most comparable to the Mississippi State Capitol are the Pennsylvania State Capitol, the Wisconsin State Capitol, and the U.S. Post Office and Court House in San Francisco.
As discussed earlier, the Pennsylvania State Capitol (1902-06) (NHL, 2006) is an exceptionally fine example of American Renaissance architecture, particularly notable for the quality and extent of its artwork. In its grandeur, however, it tells a very different story than is told by the Mississippi capitol. Built as the capitol of a wealthy, populous Northeastern state, in a region rich in professional architects, skilled artists and artisans, and highly capable building contractors and craftsmen, it expresses the highest achievements of American Renaissance architecture; but it does not in itself exemplify the widespread adoption of Academic Classicism to areas outside of the Northeast, as a truly national movement.
NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 37 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
The Wisconsin State Capitol (1906-1917) (NHL, 2001), also discussed earlier, was begun three years after the completion of the Mississippi Capitol and was completed eleven years later. The text of its National Historic Landmark nomination quotes Hitchcock and Seale in equating the completion of the installation of the statue atop its dome with the moment the American Renaissance ended. Like the Pennsylvania capitol, the Wisconsin capitol is richly adorned with specially commissioned artwork by nationally prominent artists. As such, it expresses the magnificence that could be achieved when monumental Academic Classical public architecture was undertaken by wealthy and populous states. The national significance of the building, however, is derived as much from its close association with the La Follette family and the Progressive Movement as from its architecture.
The former U.S. Post Office and Court House in San Francisco, California (now the James R. Browning United States Court of Appeals Building) was begun in 1897 and completed in 1905, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2012. Like the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin state capitols, the San Francisco Court of Appeals Building is a very ornate example of American Renaissance architecture. Its design is expressive of the “Second Renaissance Revival” style based on Italian Renaissance precedents.
Like these three buildings, the Mississippi State Capitol is,a notable example of American Renaissance classicism, but it differs from them in a very significant way, namely that these three buildings were built in prosperous cities in wealthy and populous states, whereas the Mississippi capitol was built in what was then a very small town in a very rural, economically struggling Southern state. Their construction budgets were vastly larger than the funds available for the Mississippi capitol. It is not difficult to achieve grandeur with extensive funding; it is far more challenging to achieve architectural grandeur and a unified, functional composition on a very tight budget. The Mississippi Capitol shows what could be achieved by a talented architect and a skilled contractor with only limited funding. Moreover, Mississippi at that time was culturally about as far removed from the Wisconsin and California as it was from the urban Northeast. Around 1900, it would have been expected that fashionable, “cutting edge” architecture would be built in a booming, prosperous city like San Francisco or a progressive Midwestern state like Wisconsin. For a major example of American Renaissance architecture to have been constructed in a small Southern town, however, where architectural tastes were very conservative and provincial, tells a very different story (and perhaps a much more meaningful one from a historical viewpoint) about the breadth and rapidity, and the significance, of the spread of Academic Classicism at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Moreover, because the Mississippi Capitol derives its monumentality more from its architectural elements and materials directly than from applied ornamentation and the installation of works of representational art, such as murals and interior sculpture, it anticipates the austere Neoclassicism of the 1920s early 1930s, and thus exhibits a more “modern” architectural sensibility than those other lavish Beaux Arts buildings. While it displays a Beaux Arts approach to the integration of the arts, in the Mississippi capitol, these are architectural arts (marble work, architectural stonework, mosaics, architectural glass, etc.), not applied embellishments such as murals.
Some Persons and Firms involved with Construction of the Capitol 1900-1903
Theodore C. Link, of St. Louis, architect The architect of the Mississippi State Capitol was Theodore Carl Link (1850-1923) of St. Louis, Missouri. A native of Wimpfen, in what was then the Grand Duchy of Hesse, Germany, Link studied architecture and engineering in Paris before immigrating to the United States in 1869.93 He settled in St. Louis and resided there
93 There is some disagreement among various published sources about which of the major architectural and engineering NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 38 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for most of his life, though he also worked briefly in Pittsburgh and in New York. He had ties to Mississippi, however, though his wife, Annie C. Fuller, whom he married in 1875. Annie Fuller Link’s uncle S. E. Carey was a prominent resident of Holly Springs, Mississippi, and through him and his first wife Annie Walter Carey, Annie Link was related to Irene Walter Johnson, wife of Oscar Johnson, president of the International Shoe Company of St. Louis and one of Link’s important clients.94 Link and his wife visited Holly Springs on frequent occasions and Link carried out several architectural projects there for Oscar Johnson, including the remodeling of Walter Place (1860, remodeled in 1902-04), the Polk-Cochran House (circa 1850, remodeled circa 1917), and the Featherston-Buchanan House (1837, remodeled circa 1917).
Link worked in partnership with Edward Cameron of St. Louis in 1891. He worked with Alfred Rosenheim and William B. Ittner from 1894 to 1896 and in partnership with Rosenheim from 1896 to 1898. From 1898 to 1911 he practiced independently. In 1911 he formed a partnership with his son Karl, who died in 1913. Link practiced in partnership with Wilbur Trueblood from 1915 until his own death in 1923.95
Link was an exceptionally versatile architect, working skillfully on a variety of building types and landscapes, including churches, governmental buildings, exhibition halls, collegiate buildings and college campus plans, hospitals, power plants, commercial buildings, railroad depots, YMCA buildings, public parks, and numerous private residences. These designs spanned a wide range of architectural styles. His religious buildings included several different modes of Gothic and Romanesque architecture as well as Neoclassical Revival. His residential works spanned the Queen Anne, Shingle Style, Richardsonian Romanesque, Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, Neoclassical Revival, and Renaissance Revival styles, as well as combinations of styles and more individualistic designs, many showing a Prairie Style influence. His office buildings were generally in the Chicago Commercial Style, expressing a confident use of steel frame construction. Several of his designs, including the Palace of Mines and Metallurgy at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904, were in a free and imaginative style which Link himself called “Secession” in reference to the Vienna Secession Movement. His last designs, for Louisiana State University, were in a freely-interpreted Italian Renaissance style.
The most widely recognized and acclaimed of Link’s works in his own lifetime was Union Station in St. Louis (1891-94), and it remains his most recognized and acclaimed building, having been designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970 as “the country’s finest surviving example of the High Victorian picturesque eclectic style as applied to railroad stations in the 19th century.”
Another of Link’s most prominent buildings was the Wabash Terminal in Pittsburgh (1903-04), a lavish Beaux- Arts building that was part railroad station and part high-rise office building. Other railroad buildings included Union Station in Little Rock, Arkansas (1907 and 1920-21) (National Register), and depots for the Wabash Railroad in Missouri, Illinois and Ohio. Link’s religious works included several important buildings in St. Louis
schools in Paris Link attended. According to a biographical sketch in The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Volume 12 (New York: James T. White & Company, 1904), 104, and several other contemporary sources, he attended the École des Arts et Metiers, but some other publications say that he attended the École Centrale. It is sometimes incorrectly asserted that Link attended the École des Beaux-Arts, but that is an error that is probably derived, in many instances, from an inaccurate biographical sketch of Link that was published in Henry F. Withey and Elise Rathburn Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased) (Los Angeles: Hennessey and Ingalls, 1970; originally published 1956), 373-374. Many of the published biographical sketches of Theodore C. Link state that he came to the United States in 1870, but his passport application, filled out in his own handwriting on May 24, 1895, states that he emigrated to the United States from Havre, France, on or about April 28, 1869 aboard the SS Paraguay. The listing of his name on the passenger manifest of the SS Paraguay, which arrived in New York on May 17, 1869, confirms this. Both of these documents were downloaded from Ancestry.com on July 31, 2014. The passport application also provides documentation that he was born in Wimpfen, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, Germany, on May 17, 1850. Wimpfen (now called Bad Wimpfen) is now a part of Baden-Württemberg. 94 Information provided by Gary Tetley of St. Louis, Missouri. 95 Information provided by Gary Tetley of St. Louis, Missouri. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 39 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
– Lindell Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church (1896-97; later relocated and rebuilt), Shaare Emuth Temple (1897; not extant), Second Presbyterian Church (1899-1900) (National Register, 1975), and St. John’s Methodist Church in St. Louis (1901-03) (in the Holy Corners Historic District, National Register, 1975) – and also First Presbyterian Church in Alton, Illinois (1897) and Niedringhaus Memorial Methodist Church in Granite City, Illinois (1906). Link prepared master campus plans for Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Among his many collegiate buildings are several buildings at Monticello Seminary (now Lewis and Clark Community College), Godfrey, Illinois (1899); the Hall of Science at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri (1901); Reid Hall at Washington and Lee University (1904); several buildings at the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, and the University of Southern Mississippi (1920-21); and several buildings at Louisiana State University (1922-23), including the Memorial Tower. (Many of these buildings are listed on the National Register either individually or as parts of historic districts.) The Mississippi State Capitol was Link’s most prominent governmental building, but he also submitted a proposed design for the Idaho State Capitol, in 1905, which ranked second place in the design competition,96 and in 1912 he submitted a proposed design for the Missouri State Capitol; and he served as a consultant on the Arkansas State Capitol. In addition, he designed the Madison County Courthouse in Fredericktown, Missouri (1899) (National Register) and directed the renovation of the Old Mississippi State Capitol (National Historic Landmark) in 1917.
In 1920, the Mississippi Legislature established the State Bond Improvement Commission to oversee the expenditure of funds generated from a state bond program for construction and improvement of numerous state- owned properties throughout Mississippi. Impressed by Theodore Link from his work as architect of the new Capitol, and more recently as architect for the renovation of the Old Capitol, the Senate Finance Committee hired him to conduct a survey of needs and estimate of costs for the Bond Improvement program, and subsequently the Bond Improvement Commission hired him to work full-time as its supervising architect. In this position, he was responsible for overseeing all the construction and repair work authorized by the Commission, and his firm, Link and Trueblood, was designated to design all of the new buildings to be constructed under the program. The Commission was lavish in their praise of Link and his work, writing, in their first report to the Legislature:
Mr. Link was known to us as a man of national reputation in his profession. For nearly twenty years his name has been associated with the erection of the new capitol of our State. Only recently we had seen monumental expression of his ability, in the preservation, along intensely practical lines, of the Old Capitol. … He is a man of broad vision, of deep sympathies, and of infinite patience. He has given to the State, though this work, the best that it has been his to give. He has given up his residence in St. Louis, and has devoted his entire time and thought to the problems of your Commission. 97
When contrasted with the volatile and contentious relations that have existed between many governmental project commissions and their architects, this is high praise indeed!
After the majority of the architectural work for the State Bond Improvement Commission was well underway, no longer needing his direct supervision, Link took a leave of absence from that position in 1922 in order to move to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to design the overall plan and original buildings for the new campus of Louisiana State University. 98 While he was in Baton Rouge, he died on November 12, 1923, after a brief
96 “About the History of Idaho’s Capitol,” 4. 97 Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission, First Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission (1922), 8-9. 98 Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission, Final Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission (1924), 14. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 40 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
illness, at the age of 73.99 Following his death, the State Bond Improvement Commission, in their final report to the Legislature in 1924, said of him, “…He was a great architect; a great artist; a gentleman in the truest sense of the term; and a devoted and loyal friend. His attachment to Mississippi, to which he referred as his adopted State, was both deep and sincere.” Link was so highly regarded in Mississippi that after his death the Legislature adopted a Concurrent Resolution officially expressing its sorrow.100
Theodore Link has generally not been mentioned in the broad published architectural histories. There may be several reasons for that. One reason is that Link was not a polemicist or a theoretician. Unlike some other well known architects of his time, he did not write books expressing his architectural ideas. He was focused on the creation of well-designed and well-constructed buildings that satisfied his clients. A second reason he is not more widely recognized is that Link practiced out of St. Louis, instead of one of the major cities of the Northeast, so his work was not, and is not today, as visible to East Coast-based architectural historians and architectural commentators, who have therefore tended to regard Link as being only of “regional” prominence. A third reason for his lack of national recognition may have been Link’s very versatility itself: he was so good at so many different things that he has not been considered exceptional in any one area of specialization, except to some extent as a designer of railroad stations, largely on account of his design of Union Station in St. Louis, even though he was by no means a specialist in railroad architecture.
To regard Union Station as the best example of Link’s work may perhaps not reflect a clear understanding of either the range of Link’s work or of the history of Union Station itself. As Paul Clifford Larson notes in The Spirit of H.H. Richardson on the Midland Prairies, Link produced the Union Station in partnership with Edward Cameron, who had worked in Richardson’s office, and it is difficult to say how much of its design is attributable to Cameron. Larson writes:
…[A]fter Richardson’s death, Cameron returned [from Chicago] to his hometown of St. Louis and by 1891 had formed a partnership with the rising architect Theodore Link. Their dissociation in 1894 and Cameron’s untimely death four years later have obscured Cameron’s rightful recognition as co-architect of the Union Station in St. Louis … one of the crowning achievements of the brief Richardsonian era in American architecture.101
The wide diversity of types of building designed by Link, and the very wide variety of their architectural styles, show that that he was an exceptionally versatile and talented architect. He was a consummate Eclectic in an age of Eclecticism, and the variety and technical skill of his work cannot be properly represented by one single building (even one so notable and widely recognized as Union Station in St. Louis). To appreciate the masterful eclecticism of Link, one must consider any one of his buildings within the broader context of the wide range of his works. In terms of its scale, its complexity, its manner of construction, and its mastery of detail, the Mississippi State Capitol is arguably Link’s finest work.
Karl E. Link and William T. Schmitt, superintendents of construction (representing the architect) For most of the time that the Mississippi State Capitol was under construction, Theodore Link continued to work out of his offices in St. Louis, making frequent visits to Jackson by railroad to observe the progress of construction and to meet with the State House Commission. Representing the architect on a day-to-day basis at
99 J. Michael Desmond, The Architecture of LSU (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013), 40; and Final Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission (1924), 14. 100 Mississippi Senate, Senate Journal (1924), index, 2209, a xerographic copy of which is located in the Subject file, “Link, Theodore,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 101 Paul Clifford Larson, “H.H. Richardson Goes West: The Rise and Fall of an Eastern Star,” in The Spirit of H.H. Richardson on the Midland Prairies: Regional Transformations of an Architectural Style, Paul Clifford Larson, editor (Ames., Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 1988), 27. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 41 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
the construction site were two young men who served as architectural superintendents, his son Karl E. Link and William T. Schmitt. Some sources cite only Karl E. Link, but the program for the laying of the cornerstone in 1903 lists both men as “superintendents for architect.” 102
Karl Eugene Link (1876-1913) was the eldest son of Theodore C. Link. Trained as an architect, he worked under his father’s direction for about ten years before forming a partnership with him in 1910, but not long after that Karl Link became seriously ill, and he died of leukemia on January 28, 1913 at the age of 36.103
Apparently Karl Link was sent to Pittsburgh in the spring of 1903, to supervise construction of the Wabash Terminal Building, and William T. Schmitt, who had been working in Theodore Link’s office in St. Louis, was sent to take Karl’s place as Link’s on-site representative in Jackson. This was apparently William Taussig Schmitt (1880-1965), who moved to Oklahoma City about 1906 and established a successful architectural practice there. He designed several locally prominent buildings in Oklahoma and Kansas including the First Methodist Episcopal Church (now First United Methodist Church) in Salina, Kansas (1916-17), and the Administration Building of Oklahoma City University (completed in 1922).
Bernard R. Green, of Washington, D.C., design selection consultant Bernard Richardson Green (1843-1914) served a brief but very important role as consultant to the Mississippi State House Commission in the selection of the architect for the Capitol and in making recommendations for changes to the proposed design, which were incorporated into the final design.
Green was a prominent civil engineer most noted for his work as the superintendent of construction for the Library of Congress (now called the Thomas Jefferson Building) in Washington, D.C., which was begun in 1890 and completed in 1897 (NHL, 1965). He was also involved in the construction of the State, War, and Navy Building (later known as the Old Executive Office Building, now called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) (NHL, 1971) as an assistant to Colonel (later Brigadier General) Thomas Lincoln Casey (1831-1896), who directed the later phases of its construction from 1877 to 1888. Green also worked with Casey on the completion of the Washington Monument from 1879 to 1885.104
On May 18, 1900, the Mississippi State House Commission, faced with the difficult task of selecting an architect for the Capitol building from the numerous architects who had submitted proposed designs, adopted a resolution authorizing the president of the commission “to employ Mr. Bernard Green, builder of the Congressional library building at Washington, D.C., to come to Jackson and act with this commission in examining the plans and specifications for a New Capitol building.” On June 7,1900, Green met with the commission in Jackson and “entered upon the discharge of his duties.” On June 11 he made a report to the commission giving his evaluation of the submitted plans. He recommended the selection of the architect of Design No. 5, which was the original plan submitted by Theodore Link. He made some positive comments about Design No. 8 (which had been submitted by George R. Mann) and Design No. 13 (which had been submitted by G.W. Bunting, of Indianapolis, Indiana), but was dismissive of the other designs. Green also made some specific recommendations for the improvement of Design No. 5, which Link subsequently incorporated into his final design. These recommendations included the omission of the tower shown in the original design, the addition of an attic story, the inclusion of floor glazing in the upper corridors to provide illumination down to the first story corridor, and the placement of a basement entrance within a porte cochere located under the
102 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, 73. 103 Genealogical and biographical information about Karl Eugene Link found on Ancestry.com in August 2014; and the death certificate of Karl Eugene Link downloaded in August 2014 from the on-line vital records database of the State of Missouri. http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/deathcertificates/#searchdeat 104 “Green, Bernard Richardson,” The 20th Century Biography of Notable Americans, vol. 4, 387. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 42 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
front steps. 105
The span of time of Green’s involvement with the design of the Capitol was very brief, but his contribution, in selecting Link’s proposed design and in making recommendations for its improvement, was of great importance to the success of the project.
From 1901 to 1906 Bernard R. Green served as the superintendent of construction for the Pennsylvania State Capitol (NHL, 2013). He was also the superintendent of construction for the National Museum of Natural History (originally called the United States National Museum), a part of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. (1904-1911, Hornblower & Marshall, architects). Green was widely recognized as a leading authority on the design of libraries and library shelving systems. In 1908 the Snead and Company Iron Works of Jersey City, New Jersey, published a book describing the library stack system devised by Green and citing numerous libraries where the system had been installed. The book was revised and reissued, under a slightly different title, in 1911. Green served as a consultant for the library stacks for the New York Public Library, designed by Carrère and Hastings and completed in 1911. Bernard R. Green died in 1914 and is buried at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington. 106
W.A. and A.E. Wells, of Chicago, general contractors The firm of W.A. and A.E. Wells, of Chicago, was selected as the general construction contractors for the Capitol on December 13, 1900. The contract was signed on December 18, to become effective on January 1, 1901. Only thirty-two months later, on August 20, 1903, the State House Commission voted to accept the completed building from the contractors. 107
The firm was established in 1880 as a partnership between Warren Ayer Wells (1830-1899) and his eldest son Addison E. Wells (1856-1933). During the 1890s the company was very active in the construction of steel- frame buildings in Chicago, erecting many of the city’s major commercial buildings, including the Ayer Building (1899, Holabird & Roche, architects) (National Register) (HABS), the Cable Building (1899, Holabird & Roche, architects) (not extant) (HABS), and the Fine Arts Building (Studebaker Building) (1885 and 1898, Solon S. Bemon, architect). They also erected buildings in St. Louis, Detroit, and Duluth. 108
Following the death of W.A. Wells in 1899, the firm was reorganized in 1901 as the Wells Brothers Company, with A.E. Wells as president, in partnership with and his brothers Fred Amasa Wells (1859-1922) and Judd E. Wells (1865-1946). Although the firm used the name “Wells Brothers Company” during most of the time that the Mississippi State Capitol was under construction, the minutes of the State House Commission indicate that the Commission (desiring consistency in the financial accounts and other public records) insisted that all of the
105 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 17-26. 106 The State Capitol of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa.: The Telegraph Printing Company, 1906), 86, 91-92; Rathbun, A Descriptive Account of the Building Recently Erected for the Departments of Natural History of the United States National Museum, 11, 13; and Smithsonian Institution, Archives, Index listing for “United States National Museum, Superintendent of Construction for the United States National Museum Building, Records, 1903-1911” (Smithsonian Institution Archives record unit 81 [RU000081]). http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_216688; Snead and Company Iron Works, Book Stack and Shelving for Libraries, Designed by Bernard R. Green (Jersey City, N.J., 1908), and Snead and Company Iron Works, Library Planning, Bookstacks and Shelving (Jersey City, N.J., 1911); and “Undertaking Its Destruction,” The Wall Street Journal, on-line edition (December 3, 2012), http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323751104578151653883688578, cited in ELMALVANEY [pseud.], “Mississippi’s Connection to the New York Public Library,” Preservation in Mississippi (January 3, 2013), http://misspreservation.com/2013/01/03/mississippis-connection-to-the-new-york-public-library/. Biographical information was obtained, in part, from records obtained through Ancestry.com. 107 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 184 and 586. 108 That these buildings were constructed by the firm of W.A. and A.E. Wells is documented in A History of the City of Chicago, Its Men and Institutions (Chicago: Inter Ocean, 1900), 307. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 43 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form firm’s communication with the State in connection with the Capitol contract be submitted using the name “W.A. and A.E. Wells” instead of “Wells Brothers.” The Commission minutes show that Judd E. Wells was the on-site representative of the company, for business purposes, although the supervisor of construction for the company was Theodore H. Schlader (1856-1919). 109
An advertisement published in 1902 identifies the firm as “Wells Brothers Company, successors to W.A. & A.E. Wells, General Building Construction,” with offices in Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Jackson (at the Mississippi State Capitol Building).110 Major works finished by the firm after the completion of the Mississippi State Capitol included the Chicago Building (Chicago Savings Bank Building) (1904, Holabird & Roche, architects) (National Register) and the Republic Building (1905, Holabird & Roche, architects) (not extant) (HABS) in Chicago, and the Belvidere Hotel (1903, Parker &Thomas, architects) (National Register) in Baltimore. The brothers also established a separate firm, Wells Brothers Company of New York, with F.A. Wells as president. This related firm erected numerous prominent buildings in New York City and also major buildings in Syracuse and Philadelphia.
Louis J. Millet, subcontractor for art glass The original stained glass and other decorative glasswork in the Capitol was executed by the firm of Louis J. Millet of Chicago. However, because he was a subcontractor to W.A. and A.E. Wells, rather than working directly for the State House Commission, there are few documentary records of his firm’s involvement. 111
Louis J. Millet (1856-1923) was a noted designer and decorative artist specializing in stained glass. A native of New York, he attended the École des Beaux-Arts and the École des Arts Decoratifs in Paris before setting in Chicago, where he and George Healy established an architectural decorative arts firm. Healy and Millet worked closely with the architect Louis Sullivan in creating the interiors of the Auditorium Building (1889) (NHL, 1975) and the Kehilath Anshe Ma’ariv Synagogue (Pilgrim Baptist Church) (1890-91) in Chicago. They also carried out Sullivan’s stencil designs for the Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room (1894). After the firm of Healy & Millet was dissolved in 1899, Millet continued in practice independently as an architectural decorative artist. After the completion of the Mississippi State Capitol, Millet worked with Sullivan in creating the interiors of the National Farmers Bank in Owatonna, Minnesota (1904-08) (NHL, 1976). He also designed a notable stained glass window for Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago (NHL, 2013), and worked with architect George Washington Maher on several buildings, including the J.R. Watkins Company Administration Building (1911-13) (National Register) in Winona, Minnesota.112
George Dugan, sub-contractor for exterior stonework George Dugan (1850-1909) was the sub-contractor for the stonework of the exterior walls of the Capitol.113 A native of Ohio, he relocated to Kansas City as a young man and worked as a stone cutter and stonework contractor there for some twenty-five years before relocating to Bedford, Indiana, in 1901.
109 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 215, 371, and 449; Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, 73. For a biographical sketch of Theodore H. Schlader, see his obituary in Oak Park Oak Leaves (Oak Park, Ill.), February 15, 1919, 4. 110 An advertisement in A Catalogue of the Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club (1902), 92. Included in the exhibition was Link’s drawing of the main elevation of the Mississippi State Capitol, and a photograph of the construction of the Capitol accompanied the advertisement by the Wells Brothers Company. 111 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, 74. 112 Sinkevitch, Alice, ed., AIA Guide to Chicago (San Diego and New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1993), 46-48 and 378- 379; U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination, Second Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Illinois (September 4, 2012), 46-47; and Lauren S. Weingarden, “The Colors of Nature: Louis Sullivan’s Architectural Polychromy and Nineteenth-Century Color Theory,” Winterthur Portfolio, 20:4 (Winter 1985), 258-259. 113 Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone, 74. See also Daily Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Miss.), March 28, 1901, 8. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 44 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
For thirty years he was in the cut stone business, the greater part of the time in Kansas City, but going from that city [to Bedford, Indiana] in 1901. He organized the Dugan Cut Stone Company, which concern had the contracts for some of the most important buildings in the Middle West. Among the structures that the company erected were the State Capitols of Mississippi, at Jackson, [and] of Kentucky, at Frankfort, and the Federal Building, County Courthouse, City Hall, and Exchange Building at Kansas City.114
Most of the stone used for cladding the exterior of the Capitol was limestone quarried at Bedford, Indiana. The supplier was the Bedford Quarries Company.115
Robert P. Bringhurst, sculptor, designer of the pediment Robert Porter Bringhurst (1855-1925) was the designer of the sculptural composition in the tympanum of the front portico of the Mississippi State Capitol. The actual carving of the sculpture was carried out by stone- carvers employed by George Dugan, the stonework contractor, working from Bringhurst’s model.116
Bringhurst was a sculptor and art teacher who worked in St. Louis. He executed several large sculptural works for the Trans-Mississippi Exposition (the Omaha World’s Fair) in 1898 and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (the St. Louis World’s Fair) in 1904.117 His most recognized surviving works are his bronze statue of Ulysses S. Grant (1888), located on the grounds of the City Hall in St. Louis, and his monument to Elijah P. Lovejoy (1897) in Alton, Illinois.
Wollaeger Manufacturing Company, contractor for custom-made wood furniture The Wollaeger Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, built the custom-made wood furniture for the Capitol, including the Speaker’s rostrum in the House of Representatives Chamber, the President’s podium in the Senate Chamber, and the Justices’ bench in the Supreme Court Chamber. According to an advertisement in a builders’ supply directory from 1912, the firm manufactured “special furniture and fixtures for banks, offices and public buildings in wood, marble, and bronze, executed from architects’ or our own designs.” They produced “special work only; no stock goods.” Besides the Mississippi State Capitol, the Wollaeger Manufacturing Company provided custom-made furniture for the Wisconsin State Capitol, the Kentucky State Capitol, the Montana State Capitol, the Washington State Capitol, the Louisiana Supreme Court Building in New Orleans, and the Library of Congress, as well as numerous courthouses and banks throughout the United States.118
J.F. Barnes, superintendent of construction John F. Barnes (1850-1919) was a building contractor who resided in Greenville, Mississippi, before moving to Jackson in 1901 to become superintendent of construction for the Mississippi State Capitol. In this capacity he served as the on-site agent for the State House Commission, ensuring that the construction work was being done according to the approved plans and specifications and providing monthly reports to the commission on the progress of the work.
Before taking this position, Barnes had been the contractor for numerous notable buildings in Mississippi,
114 Stone (magazine), 30:1 (June 1909), 24; viewed on Google Books. 115 Daily Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi), May 28, 1902. 116 Mississippi State House Commission, Minutes, 548. 117 “Sculptors at the World’s Fair,” in Brush and Pencil, vol. 13 (Oct 1903 to March 1904). 118 Building Trade Catalogs (New York: Associated Builders Catalog Co., 1912), Section 43A, no. 3, viewed on Google Books. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 45 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
including the Old Bolivar County Courthouse (1889, not extant) in Rosedale, the Washington County Courthouse (1891) in Greenville, Temple Gemiluth Chassed (1891-92) in Port Gibson, the Old First Presbyterian Church (1891-92) in Jackson, and the Masonic Temple (1895) in Biloxi. After the completion of the Mississippi State Capitol, he built numerous prominent buildings in Jackson, including the Cowan Hotel (1905), the Pythian Castle (1906), the Carnegie Library at Millsaps College (1906-07), none of which is extant, and several public schools.119
Conclusion The Mississippi State Capitol building is an exceptionally well-designed, well-executed, and well-preserved example of American Renaissance architecture, combining an exceptionally fine Neoclassical Revival exterior with an interior that in its organization, spatial arrangements, materials, and finishes, and in its integral incorporation of painting, sculpture, and art glass into a cohesive design, beautifully expresses the ideals of Beaux Arts Classicism. It is notable not only for the quality of its design and workmanship, but also for the degree to which it expresses a single, coherent architectural expression, designed by a single architect and built entirely within a single three-year program of construction. It was completed before any of the other capitols that exemplify American Academic Classicism. Moreover, it retains a remarkably high degree of integrity from its period of construction in all respects: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.
A particularly notable aspect of the Mississippi State Capitol is its exceptionally fine and diverse array of architectural glass, made by the firm of noted Chicago artisan and designer Louis J. Millet. A comprehensive study of the work of Millet and his associates has not yet been done, so the glasswork of the Mississippi Capitol cannot yet be assessed within a sufficiently well-developed context, but it is noteworthy that the building contains perhaps the largest and most diverse array of important examples of the artistry of Millet and his firm.
But what is most nationally significant about this magnificent building is that it is a clear and powerful statement that American Renaissance Classicism was a national movement – indeed, the national “style” of architecture for American public buildings at the beginning of the twentieth century – and not simply a regional phenomenon limited to the urban centers of the Northeast. It is precisely because this magnificent building was built in what was then a very small capital city in a rural, agricultural state in the Deep South, less than 40 years after it was economically, socially, and physically devastated by the Civil War, that the Mississippi State Capitol is nationally significant. Because it was built where it was built (in small, remote, and provincial Jackson, Mississippi), when it was built (1901-03), by whom it was built (a prominent St. Louis architect and a leading Chicago construction company, using art glass from Chicago, structural steel from New York, limestone shipped by rail from Indiana, and marble from many sources), it makes a singular statement about the acceptance of Academic Classicism as a national architectural movement and about the historical context within which that architectural movement occurred.
119 Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Historic Preservation Division. Historic Resources Inventory Database. Artisan files. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 46 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
9. MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Sources pertaining specifically to the architecture and history of the Mississippi State Capitol
“A Guide to the Architecture of the Mississippi State Capitol” (booklet). Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 2013.
The American Architect and Building News, vol. 70, no. 1304 (December 22, 1900).
Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club; Illustrated Catalogue of Drawings and Examples of Work in the Allied Arts. St. Louis, 1902.
Bailey, Robert J. A history of the Mississippi State Capitol. Unpublished manuscript prepared for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 2004.
Clark, E.C. “Mississippi State Capitol.” The Inland Architect and News Record, 42:3 (October 1903).
ELMalvaney [pseud.] “Critiquing the New Capitol Designs (1900) [Part 1].” Preservation in Mississippi, May 24, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/05/24/critiquing-the-new-capitol-designs-1900/
ELMalvaney [pseud.] “Critiquing the New Capitol Designs (1900) – Part 2.” Preservation in Mississippi, May 25, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/05/25/critiquing-the-new-capitol-designs-1900-part-2/
ELMalvaney [pseud.] “Critiquing the New Capitol Designs [Part 3] – Bernard Green’s unofficial opinion.” Preservation in Mississippi, May 26, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/05/26/critiquing-the-new- capitol-designs-bernard-greens-unofficial-opinion/
ELMalvaney [pseud.] “Mississippi’s Connection to the New York Public Library.” Preservation in Mississippi, January 3, 2013. http://misspreservation.com/2013/01/03/mississippis-connection-to-the-new- york-public-library/
ELMalvaney [pseud.] “More Architect/Builder Pics: Link and Barnes.” Preservation in Mississippi, December 1, 2009. http://misspreservation.com/2009/12/01/more-architect-pics-link-and-barnes/
ELMalvaney [pseud.] “The Story of Mississippi’s New Capitol [Part 1]: Hiring an Architect.” Preservation in Mississippi, January 25, 2010. http://misspreservation.com/2010/01/25/the-story-of-mississippis-new- capitol-hiring-an-architect/
ELMalvaney [pseud.] “The Story of Mississippi’s New Capitol [Part 2]: Hiring the Contractor.” Preservation in Mississippi, January 26, 2010. http://misspreservation.com/2010/01/26/the-story-of-mississippis-new- capitol-hiring-the-contractor/
ELMalvaney [pseud.] “The Story of Mississippi’s New Capitol [Part 3]: Git-R-Done.” Preservation in Mississippi, January 27, 2010. http://misspreservation.com/2010/01/27/the-story-of-mississippis-new- capitol-git-r-done/
ELMalvaney [pseud.] “The Story of Mississippi’s New Capitol [Part 4]: Barnes and Link report in.” Preservation in Mississippi, January 28, 2010. http://misspreservation.com/2010/01/28/the-story-of- mississippis-new-capitol-barnes-and-link-report/ NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 47 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Meister, Chris. James Riely Gordon: His Courthouses and Other Public Architecture. Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press, 2011.
Mississippi. Adjutant General. Biennial Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Mississippi for the Years 1924-1925.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Photograph collection PI/HS/1982.0095, “Grieve, A.R.”
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Photograph collection PI/STR/C36, “Capitols.”
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Capitol Building, New: 1897-1919.”
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Capitol Building, New: 1920-1939.”
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Capitol Building, New: Historical Sketches and Undated.”
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Liberty Bell.”
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Link, Theodore.”
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archives and Records Services Division. Subject File: “Mississippi, U.S.S. (2nd) (1905).”
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Administration Division. Pre-Renovation Photographs of New Capitol, 1977. Official Records, Series 2351: Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Historic Preservation Division. Historic Resources Inventory Database. Artisan files.
Mississippi. Official and Statistical Register. 1904.
Mississippi. Official and Statistical Register. 1908.
Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission. Architectural Drawings and Blueprints, 1905-1923; undated. Official Records, Series 667, Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission. Building Project Files and Correspondence, 1919-1924. Official Records, Series 666, Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission. First Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission. 1922.
Mississippi State Bond Improvement Commission. Final Report of the State Bond Improvement Commission. 1924. Official Records, Series 669, Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Mississippi State Building Commission; Mississippi Bureau of Building, Grounds, and Real Property Management. Contract Files, 1952-1963. Official Records, Series 1542, Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Mississippi State Building Commission; Mississippi Bureau of Building, Grounds, and Real Property Management. Project Files, 1942-1971. Official Records, Series 1646, Mississippi Department of Archives and History. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 48 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Mississippi State Building Commission files: New Capitol Construction, Repairs, and Restoration, 1900-1982. Official Records, Series 142, Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Mississippi State House Commission. Commission Files, 1900-1903. Official Records, Series 634, Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Mississippi State House Commission. Minutes, 1900-1904. Official Records, Series 637, Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Mississippi State House Commission. Photographs of New Capitol, 1900-1903. Official Records, Series 317, Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Mississippi State House Commission. Proceedings Connected with Laying the Corner Stone of Mississippi’s New State House in the City of Jackson on June 3, 1903. Jackson: Tucker Printing House, the Mississippi State House Commission, 1903.
Mississippi State House Commission. “Report of the State House Commission of Mississippi to the Legislature of the State of Mississippi, 1904.” Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Mississippi, at a Regular Session Thereof in the City of Jackson, January, February, and March, 1904. Nashville, Tenn.: Brandon Printing Co., 1904.
“New Capitol Cleaned Up, CWA Workers Repair Structure, First Time in 30 Years,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi), March 26, 1934.
“New Offices To Afford Privacy.” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi), October 15, 1930.
Roland, Dunbar, editor. “Capitol, New.” Mississippi, Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form. Volume I, A-K. Atlanta, Georgia: Southern Historical Publications Association, 1907.
Rosell, Thomas [pseud.] “A Rosetta Stone and Truth about the Dome?” Preservation in Mississippi, September 6, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/09/06/a-rosetta-stone-and-truth-about-the-dome/.
Sanborn Map Company. Fire Insurance Maps of Jackson, Mississippi. February 1892 (sheet 2), March 1900 (sheet 2), October 1904 (sheet 7), July 1909 (sheet 11), and April 1914 (sheet 14).
Skates, John Ray. Mississippi’s Old Capitol: Biography of a Building. Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1990.
Smith, Elise L. “Belle Kinney and the Confederate Women’s Monument.” Southern Quarterly, 32:4 (Summer 1944): 6-31.
“State Accepts Liberty Bell in Formal Ceremony.” Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi), July 5, 1950.
WFT Architects. “New Capitol: Space Utilization.” Schematic drawings. May 2008.
Wintory, Blake “A Tale of Two Domes: Mississippi and Arkansas” (Part I). Preservation in Mississippi, August 22, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/08/22/architectural-twins-mississippi-and-arkansas-state- capitol-domes/.
Wintory, Blake “A Tale of Two Domes, Part II.” Preservation in Mississippi, August 23, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/08/23/a-tale-of-two-domes-part-ii/
NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 49 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Wintory, Blake “A Tale of Two Domes, Part III.” Preservation in Mississippi, August 24, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/08/24/architectural-twins-mississippi-and-arkansas-state-capitol-domes- part-iii/
Wintory, Blake “A Tale of Two Domes, Finale” (Part IV). Preservation in Mississippi, August 25, 2011. http://misspreservation.com/2011/08/25/architectural-twins-mississippi-and-arkansas-state-capitol-domes- part-iv/
“Yazoo & Mississippi Railroad Company, Pltffs., in Err., v. Wirt Adams.” The Supreme Court Reporter, 21 (November 1900-July 1901). St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1901.
Sources pertaining to Theodore Link and other persons directly involved with the Mississippi Capitol
“Addison E. Wells, Noted Architect, Dies At 76.” Manitowoc Herald-Times, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, November 4, 1933.
Building Trade Catalogs. New York: Associated Builders Catalog Co., 1912.
Cox, James. Old and New St. Louis. St. Louis, 1894.
Desmond, J. Michael. The Architecture of LSU. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013.
“Green, Bernard Richardson.” The 20th Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Vol. 4. Boston: The Biographical Society, 1904.
A History of the City of Chicago, Its Men and Institutions. Chicago: Inter Ocean, 1900.
Kinsey, Joni L. “Link, Theodore C. (1850-1923).” Dictionary of Missouri Biography. Edited by Lawrence O. Christensen. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1999.
Larson, Paul Clifford, editor. The Spirit of H.H. Richardson on the Midland Prairies: Regional Transformations of an Architectural Style. Ames., Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 1988.
“Link, Theodore C.” The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, volume 12. New York: James T. White & Company, 1904.
Marquis, Albert Nelson, editor. The Book of Chicagoans: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men of the City of Chicago, Volume 2. Chicago, A.N. Marquis & Company, 1911.
Simpson, Pamela H. “Belle Kinney.” The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, Volume 1, edited by Joan M. Marter. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. National Historic Landmark Nomination, Second Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Illinois. September 4, 2012.
Waterman, A.N., editor. Historical Review of Chicago and Cook County and Selected Biography. Volume 2. Chicago and New York, Lewis Publishing Co., 1908.
Weingarden, Lauren S. “The Colors of Nature: Louis Sullivan’s Architectural Polychromy and Nineteenth- Century Color Theory.” Winterthur Portfolio 20:4 (Winter 1985), 243-260.
NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 50 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Sources Pertaining to the Broader Architectural and Historic Context
Allen, William C. History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics. Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press of the Pacific, 2005. (Originally published in hardcover in 2001.)
Appelbaum, Stanley. The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893: A Photographic Record. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1980.
Bach, Ira J., editor. Chicago’s Famous Buildings. Third Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Bolotin, Norman, and Christine Laing. The World’s Columbian Exposition: The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002. (Originally published by Preservation Press in 1992.)
Christen, Barbara S., and Steven Flanders, editors. Cass Gilbert, Life and Work: Architect of the Public Domain. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
Curl, James Stevens. Classical Architecture: An Introduction to Its Vocabulary and Essentials, with a Select Glossary of Terms. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001. (Originally published in 1992).
Dean, Andrea Oppenheimer. “Revisiting the White City.” Historic Preservation 45:2 (March-April 1993).
Fletcher, Bannister. A History of Architecture. Eighteenth edition, revised by J. C. Palmes. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975.
Gillon, Edmund V., and Henry Hope Reed. Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York: A Photographic Guide New York: Dover Publications, 1988.
Goodsell, Charles T. The American Statehouse: Interpreting Democracy’s Temples. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2001.
Gowans, Alan. Styles and Types of North American Architecture: Social Function and Cultural Expression. New York: HarperCollins, 1993 (© 1992).
George, Allan, and Michael Greenberg. The Architecture of McKim, Mead, and White, 1879-1915. Lanham, Maryland and New York: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2013. Originally published by the Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1925.
The State Capitol of Pennsylvania. Harrisburg, Pa.: The Telegraph Printing Company, 1906.
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (in the Pelican History of Art series). Fourth edition. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1978 (©1977). (Originally published in 1958.)
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, and William Seale. Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.
Jacobs, James. “Capitols as National Historic Landmarks.” U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. February 2009.
Jordy, William H. American Buildings and Their Architects: Progressive and Academic Ideals at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Garden City, New York: Anchor, 1976 (paperback). Originally printed 1972.
NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 51 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Kidney, Walter C. The Architecture of Choice: Eclecticism in America, 1880-1930. New York: George Braziller, 1974.
Lee, Antoinette J. Architects to the Nation: The Rise and Decline of the Supervising Architect’s Office. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Lemerle, Frédérique, and Yves Pauwels. Baroque Architecture, 1600-1750. Paris: Flammarion, 2008.
“Minnesota State Capitol.” Brochure. St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society, n.d. (circa 1983).
Pierson, William H. “Richard Upjohn and the American Rundbogenstil.” Winterthur Portfolio 21:4 (Winter 1986).
Price, Monica T. The Sourcebook of Decorative Stone: An Illustrated Identification Guide. Buffalo, New York, and Richmond Hill, Ontario: Firefly Books, 2007.
Rathbun, Richard. A Descriptive Account of the Building Recently Erected for the Departments of Natural History of the United States Museum (Smithsonian Institution Bulletin 80). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1913. Reprinted in 2013(?) from an original in the collections of the Library of the University of Michigan.
Reed, Henry Hope. The United States Capitol: Its Architecture and Decoration. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005.
Ruggerio, Francis Pio. State Capitols: Temples of Sovereignty. Milford, Pennsylvania: Excelsior, 2002.
Simmonds, Tricia. St. Paul’s Cathedral. Bath, England: Unichrome, Ltd., 1992.
Scott, Pamela, and Antoinette J. Lee. Buildings of the District of Columbia (in the SAH Buildings of the United States series). New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Simpson, Pamela H. Cheap, Quick, and Easy: Imitative Architectural Materials, 1870-1930. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1999.
Sinkevitch, Alice, editor. AIA Guide to Chicago. San Diego and New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1993.
Thrane, Susan W., and Tom Patterson. State Houses: America’s 50 State Capitol Buildings. Erin, Ontario, Canada: Boston Mills Press, 2005.
U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. National Historic Landmark Nomination, Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. September 4, 2012.
U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. National Historic Landmark Nomination, Wisconsin State Capitol, Madison, Wisconsin. June 10, 2000.
Whiffen, Marcus. American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969.
Whiffen, Marcus, and Frederick Koeper. American Architecture 1607-1976. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981.
Wilson, Richard Guy. McKim, Mead & White, Architects. New York: Rizzoli, 1983.
NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 52 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Wilson, Richard Guy, with Dianne H. Pilgrim and Richard N. Murray. The American Renaissance, 1876-1917. New York: The Brooklyn Museum, 1979.
Withey, Henry F., and Elise Rathburn Withey. Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased). Los Angeles : Hennessey and Ingalls, 1970.
Previous documentation on file (NPS):
Preliminary Determination of Individual Listing (36 CFR 67) has been requested. X Previously Listed in the National Register. Previously Determined Eligible by the National Register. Designated a National Historic Landmark. X Recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey: # MS-191 Recorded by Historic American Engineering Record: #
Primary Location of Additional Data:
State Historic Preservation Office X Other State Agency: Mississippi Department of Archives and History Federal Agency Local Government University Other (Specify Repository)
10. GEOGRAPHICAL DATA
Acreage of Property: 11 acres
UTM References: Zone Easting Northing
NW corner 15 765248 3577724 NE corner 15 765455 3577695 SE corner 15 765423 3577474 SW corner 15 765213 3577507
Verbal Boundary Description: Parcel 35-1 on Tax Map 688, in SE ¼, Sec. 3, T5N, R1E, Hinds County, Mississippi.
Boundary Justification: This is the entire parcel historically associated with the property.
NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 MISSISSIPPI STATE CAPITOL Page 53 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
11. FORM PREPARED BY
Name/Title: Richard J. Cawthon, consulting architectural historian 120
Address: P. O. Box 1108 Jackson, MS 39215-1108
Telephone: 601-206-9295
Date: November 12, 2014
Edited by: National Park Service National Historic Landmarks Program 1201 Eye St. NW (2280), 8th Floor Washington, DC 20005
Telephone: (202) 354-
NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARKS PROGRAM January 14, 2019
120 Richard J. Cawthon is the retired former Chief Architectural Historian of the Historic Preservation Division, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, having served in that position from 1985 to 2006. In that position he served as manager of the National Register of Historic Places program and coordinator for the National Historic Landmarks program for Mississippi.